Requiem
by Ginevra6
Summary: Sirius Black develops a relationship with Order member Jade Magellan. After his death, Harry, Remus and Jade come to terms with loss, memory, and Sirius's legacy. [Complete]
1. Outcasts

**1. Outcasts**

Sirius Black sat at the table in the grimy kitchen of 12 Grimmauld Place. The gloomy silence of the sleeping house enclosed him in isolation. He gazed unseeingly at the old Muggle radio on the table in front of him, Harry's words echoing round and round in his head. Harry's vision of the snake attacking Arthur Weasley and all that it implied disturbed him far more deeply that he could ever allow Harry to know. The thought that Voldemort, the murderer of his best friends, could possess his godson made him want to take to the street and run until he had hunted him down. Instead, he was imprisoned in this hated dark house, the cold despair of Azkaban poisoning his thoughts. Burying his head in his hands, he dragged at his long dark hair in frustration, savagely revelling in the sense of pain external to his soul.

'There you are, Sirius!' exclaimed Molly Weasley, bustling into the kitchen with an armload of laundry.

Sirius's eyes automatically masked the anger they had reflected when nobody was looking, and he fixed her with a blank, grey expression.

Tonks and Mad-Eye should be here soon,' she said briskly. 'Now, while, we're at St Mungo's, I wonder if you could...'

She was interrupted by a flash of smoky green light. A moment later, a slender, dark-haired young woman in black work robes emerged from the fireplace. Sirius recognised Jade Magellan. She had to be the least active member of the Order apart from himself, he thought resentfully, having some apparently demanding job, which prevented her from attending meetings and doing guard duty. Her face was pale and concerned, and there were dark circles under her eyes. 'Molly! Is Arthur...' she hesitated.

'He's going to be fine,' Mrs Weasley smiled. 'You are so good to come, Jade, sweetheart. I'm taking the children to see him this afternoon.'

'Thank God' Jade breathed. 'That damned reception witch held up Bill's owl until we got out of an editing meeting,' she frowned angrily. 'I came as soon as I could...'

Ron, Fred, George and Ginny trooped into the kitchen, followed by Harry, whose weary, haunted expression convinced Sirius that he had not slept either. Jade put her arms around Ginny, whose face was tearstained and pale.

Sirius sat at the table listening to their departing footsteps as they left for the hospital. Moodily, he poked at the old radio with his wand. He thought he would try to fix it before Arthur returned from St Mungo's. The radio did not seem to respond to magic, however, and there was not a screwdriver to be found in the house. He threw down his wand, which emitted angry black sparks in protest, and began pacing the stone kitchen floor, back and forth like a caged animal.

Just as the footsteps died away towards the front door, he heard voices raised, the door opened and then slammed shut again, a woman's voice raged louder in anger with an edge of tears. A moment later the familiar shrieks rent the dusty air. 'FILTHY MUDBLOOD, FOULING THE HOUSE OF MY FATHERS! WHY DOESN'T SHE LEAVE WITH THE REST OF THE BLOOD-TRAITORS?'

Sirius slammed his fist into the wall. Cursing their forgetfulness, he ran up the stairs to the entrance hall, and dragged the moth-eaten curtains over the livid image of his mother. 'DESPICABLE OFFSPRING, SPAWN OF DEMONS, ABOMINATION OF MY BLOOD!'

'Shut UP you evil hag!' he roared, cursing his hateful legacy to the depths of hell. He turned back, to see that he was not alone.

'Sorry,' whispered Jade. 'I forgot...'

'Of course, the rest of you have more important things to think about,' he snarled, striding back down the stairs. 'So did they leave you here to give me a lecture?' He affected a high pitched imitation of Mrs Weasley's voice, seared with bitterness. 'Sirius, can't you do something about that portrait? Sirius, why don't you clean up in here? Sirius, perhaps you should be a bit kinder to Kreacher. And you're drinking far too much; you should be a better example to Harry...'

Jade had followed him into the dank kitchen, away from the now silenced Mrs Black. The Floo Network was her only means of exit.

Sirius turned to face her. 'What is it then,' he spat, 'are you...?' He broke off in mid-tirade, stricken to see tears clouding her blue-grey eyes.

'No,' she said softly. 'Arthur Weasley is the closest thing to a father I've ever had. I just wanted to help. I'll go now.' She moved towards the fireplace.

'I'm sorry...Jade,' Sirius said, contrite now. 'Stay here if you want to.' He paused. 'Why didn't you go to see him?' he asked, gently this time. 'You don't like hospitals?'

She grimaced. 'They're not my favourite. But Mad-Eye thought it wasn't safe. He said I had to stay here. That's when I lost my temper and woke up...the portrait.'

'Not safe?' Sirius asked. 'Mad-Eye is really getting paranoid.'

'No,' she sighed. 'He's right. It would be a risk for me to be seen in London with anyone from the Order. If a Muggle recognised me...But I just wanted to see him.'

'If a Muggle recognised you?' Sirius was confused. 'I thought I was the one in hiding.'

'I thought you knew. It's a long story...'

'Do you need to go?' he asked awkwardly, feeling guilty for venting his anger on her.

Jade shrugged. 'I had to convince them I was practically dying to get off work, so it'll look a bit odd if I go back now.'

'Tell me then. I hardly need to be anywhere,' Sirius said, fixing her with his slate grey eyes, and gesturing towards a chair.

Slowly, Jade sat down opposite him. Folding her arms across herself and looking down, she began, 'my parents were Muggles – as your mother pointed out...'

Sirius gave a twisted smile.

' – they were really frightened when they started realising I was a witch. They thought I was a changeling, a demon child. When my letter came from Hogwarts, they panicked. They admitted me to a psychiatric hospital, and drove away. I haven't seen then since.' She paused. 'I've never told anyone this. As far as the Order knows, I have no family and Muggles think I'm an escaped lunatic, that's all.' She smiled bleakly.

Jade glanced at Sirius. It was as if her anger and loneliness, mirrored behind his fathomless steel eyes compelled her to tell her story. Inexorably, she continued speaking in a dull monotone. 'I hated it there. I was treated like someone mad and dangerous. I was locked in my room every night, after a nurse would check that I wasn't hiding any sharp objects. They would speak to me in one syllable words as if I was an imbecile. They gave me drugs. I felt like I was sleepwalking most of the time. Except when they wore off during the night and I woke up hearing people scream. Once I lost control and I made a glass smash while the doctor was in the room. They increased the drugs...'

'Eventually I couldn't take it any more. I used magic to unlock the door one night, and tried to escape. They brought me back. I overheard the doctors talking while they thought I was asleep. They wanted to start shock treatments. I knew I would be there for the rest of my life, and slowly I would lose my mind, my soul...It would be better to die.'

Sirius felt his mind fill with cold desolation, as he remembered a hundred Dementors surrounding him beside the lake. _'Nooooo'_ his own voice echoed in his head. Jade recognised the despair in his eyes. Self-conscious, she turned her hands a second after his eyes registered the scars on her wrists.

'I stole a razor from the nurses' bathroom. The meds stopped me feeling much pain. I remember sitting, watching the bleeding, wondering how long it would take. Then...it was a magic I didn't understand. I'm not sure what happened...I disapparated and when I woke up I was in the hospital wing at Hogwarts...I started school there, and Dumbledore told the Weasleys about me – Bill was in my year in Gryffindor – and they had me to stay every summer. Of course, the story hit the papers instantly and the hospital had the police searching for me, so I had to stay away from Muggle areas. After I graduated I came to London and got a job at Obscurus Books – you know, the publishers. And I live in a wizarding house, so I'm protected...'

That sat silent in the darkening kitchen for a long moment. 'So you were the black sheep too,' Sirius said softly. 'Another outcast. I thought no one's family despised them as much as mine.' He laughed bitterly.

'Really?' asked Jade, with the ghost of a smile. 'I thought your mum was just having an off day.'

Sirius grimaced. 'I still think it's worse to have everyone think you're a mass murderer. At least people might not blame you for being insane.'

Jade laughed wryly. 'Still, there's not much I can do for the Order either. I can't afford to lose my job, or I'll be living on the street – in plain view of all the suspicious Muggles out there. Dumbledore thinks it's useful to have spies wherever possible, put I have so much work to get through the Death Eaters could be having a convention in the next room and I wouldn't notice.'

'The only thing I want is to be able to protect Harry,' said Sirius fiercely. 'I'll never know if Lily and James died thinking I betrayed them. They made me his godfather thinking they could trust me more than anyone in the world. If anything happened to him...I could never forgive myself. This vision he had...the snake...'

'I know,' Jade replied. 'Ginny told me. I'm not sure if he understands.'

'He suspects,' affirmed Sirius wearily. 'And I can't warn him about the danger it might mean...Dumbledore made us swear...And I'm stuck hiding in this goddamn house like a goddamn deserter and there's nothing I can do to keep him safe. I might as well still be in prison...'

'No... Don't you see what a difference it makes...having you in his life? He's not alone any more, Sirius.'

Sirius shrugged, although his eyes acknowledged the raw emotion in her words. 'That's something, maybe. As Molly was kind enough to remind me last summer, I wasn't doing a very good job of looking after him those twelve years I was locked up in Azkaban,' he sneered bitterly.

Jade sighed. 'Molly gets like that. She can't see past keeping her own family safe. I reckon that's why they weren't in the Order last time. She thinks that if she can only take care of her own children, the rest of the world can't touch them. But it doesn't work like that.'

'She's right though,' said Sirius sadly. 'It's true, sometimes when I look at Harry, when I see him laughing, for a moment it's as if I do have my best friend back. As if the last fourteen years never happened. As if I had never trusted Peter enough to give him the chance to betray Lily and James. As if they hadn't died, died with their whole lives ahead of them, died believing that I had failed them, that I was the one who sold them...As if I had never stood in the ruins of their house, holding Harry as he howled for his mother. As if I had never given him to Hagrid and walked away. As if I had never been taken to Azkaban...being branded the foulest dark wizard, like this family, Lord Voldemort's servant, a Judas.'

Jade was quite still, listening intently, her eyes the colour of the sky before it rains, absorbing the pain in his words.

Sirius continued, slowly, as if each word was poisonous and he tasted its bitterness. 'As if I hadn't let Peter escape again. As if I hadn't seen Harry return from the graveyard, knowing what could have happened to him...' He fell silent, his eyes dark and haunted in his wasted face.

Jade stood up. Slowly, inevitably, as if the desolation that connected them drew her inexorably to his side, she walked around the table to Sirius. Standing behind his chair, she put her arms around his chest, and dropped her face to his shoulder. He took her hand in his, caressing her scarred wrist, and felt her tears on his neck, knowing that she shed them for his pain as well as her own. They held each for a long moment, as darkness fell, and muffled voices in the hallway told them that the others had returned.

'Stay,' said Sirius.


	2. Denial

**2. Denial**

The gothic atmosphere of 12 Grimmauld place appeared to have been overcome by an onslaught of Christmas spirit. Jade thought for a moment that she had arrived at the wrong grate, as she emerged from the fireplace into the kitchen. The low ceiling was festooned with silver and gold streamers, from which tiny fairies that had escaped from the Christmas tree were swinging gleefully. The Weasleys, Harry, Hermione, Lupin, Mundungus and Tonks were already seated at the table, laughing and talking cheerfully. Sirius was grinning as he moved around the table, pouring wine, his dark hair falling over his grey eyes. Ginny giggled as he surreptitiously filled her glass while her mother's attention was diverted to the new arrival. 'Poor girl! Working late on Christmas Eve!' Mrs Weasley exclaimed, hugging her. Jade smiled at her and slipped into a chair between Ginny and Hermione. She was wearing jeans and a black sweater, having disapparated back home to change before travelling by Floo Powder to 12 Grimmauld Place. It had made her late, but..._my work robes aren't very Christmassy_, she convinced herself, dismissing the possibility that black wasn't necessarily Christmassy anyway.

'Jade! How's work?' Hermione greeted her enthusiastically, always eager to learn of any new developments in text books Jade had uncovered in the course of her work in the publishing industry.

'Fascinating,' Jade declared ironically. 'You dropped Divination, didn't you?'

Hermione nodded, smirking at Ron and Harry in a superior manner.

'Good decision.' Jade rolled her eyes in exasperation. 'I spent the last week editing just one chapter of _Definitive Divination_. Honestly, you'd have to be a Seer to know what the author was on about. As far as I can work out, he has decided that the art of reading tea leaves is exclusive of coffee drinkers, and therefore discriminatory. So he decided to investigate reading coffee grounds. Turns out that coffee grounds don't really form images like tea leaves do, so you just have to sort of discern what the different shaped blobs represent...'

Hermione was staring at Jade in shocked disbelief, muttering something about 'woolly branches of magic'. Jade heard Sirius laughing behind her as he came to fill her wineglass. 'Thanks,' she murmured, her face curtained by her long hair. Tonight was the first time she had seen Sirius since their intense conversation a few days previously. Jade hesitated to admit it, even to herself, yet she knew there was something that drew her to Sirius. At the same time she felt vulnerable, almost naked under his gaze. It was extremely rare for her to reveal anything about herself and her past, and the sense of exposure was alien to her. It had seemed natural and almost inevitable to be so open in the moment of that surreal grey afternoon, but now she wondered if she had said too much, misread the connection she had sensed between them.

Sirius sat down at the opposite end of the table, talking animatedly with Harry and Lupin. 'How's school?' Jade asked Ginny. She had barely seen Ginny since leaving Hogwarts and beginning work in Diagon Alley, but during the summers she had spent at The Burrow, Ginny had become like a little sister to her. The intervening years had transformed Ginevra from a small girl into a young woman, her shyness as a child developing into a quiet confidence. Ginny began regaling Jade with an enthusiastic account of the activities of the DA, all related in an undertone, out of earshot of her ever-disapproving mother. For a moment, as Jade sipped her wine, her glance met Sirius's grey eyes across the table. She didn't register exactly what had happened when Michael had attempted to stun Ginny.

'So Harry's teaching you?' she asked distractedly, a moment later.

'Yeah, he's really good at it,' observed Ginny, dropping her voice to a low whisper as Mrs Weasley looked suspiciously in their direction. 'Everyone's learnt so much already, he's a great teacher.'

Once the meal was over and everyone had helped clear the table, Harry, Ron and Sirius sidled towards the kitchen door, looking mischievous. 'Come up to the drawing room when Mum's not looking,' hissed Ron to the girls as they passed. Ginny glanced at Mrs Weasley, who was swooping down on Fred and George, plotting in hushed voices with Mundungus in the corner.

'C'mon,' whispered Ginny, tugging Hermione and Jade by their sleeves. In the drawing room, Ron was proudly extracting a bottle of Firewhisky he was clearly not supposed to have in his possession. Sirius gave his wand a lazy flick, and conjured six glasses.

'We should play a game,' suggested Ron.

'Sounds fun,' said Sirius, grinning. 'What game?'

'Er...actually, I don't know any,' admitted Ron, crestfallen.

Hermione's eyes gleamed with the formulation of a dastardly plan. 'There's a game Muggles play...but I think we could make it more fun.' She reached for the bottle. Sirius raised an eyebrow curiously as he handed it to her. Hermione frowned in concentration as she opened it, then gave her wand a complicated twirl and tapped the bottle twice. The Firewhisky smoked slightly. She passed the bottle back to Sirius, who poured out six measures.

'Explain yourself, Miss,' he ordered mischievously.

'The game is called I Have Never. We take it in turns to make a statement beginning I have never...Everyone who can't deny the statement has to drink. The spell I did will turn anyone's drink into a Babbling Beverage if they don't drink when they're supposed to, so we'll all know soon enough.'

The group regarded Hermione with a mixture of anticipation and dismay.

'I'll go first,' offered Sirius. 'Let's see...I have never hexed Professor Snivellus – I mean, Snape.' Smirking, he took a sip of Firewhisky, as did Hermione. 'What?' exclaimed Sirius. 'I don't believe you!'

'First year. I set his robes on fire. We thought he was jinxing Harry's broom during a Quidditch match. Turned out it was Quirrell though,' Hermione explained.

'Still...' said Sirius cheerfully.

'My turn,' said Hermione. 'I have never,' she smirked, 'kissed anyone from Ravenclaw.'

Blushing furiously, Harry and Ginny both sipped their drinks, as did Sirius, unblushingly. Ron wasn't paying him any attention. 'Ginny!' he spluttered.

Ginny seized her glass from the table. 'I have never,' she snapped, glaring at Hermione, 'wished I hadn't told _someone_ a secret!' She downed half her Firewhisky in one gulp, by way of emphasis, ending up slightly cross-eyed. Everyone laughed at her, and no one noticed Sirius and Jade's eyes meeting. Biting her lip, she raised her eyebrows questioningly. Sirius smiled gently and shook his head. She set her glass down again.

'I'm next,' said Harry, also glaring at Hermione. 'I have never kissed any famous Quidditch players.' He smirked as Hermione squirmed in her chair and took a sip of Firewhisky. Ron was fuming.

Jade tried to think of a distraction. 'I have never,' she said quickly, 'spent a night out of bed at Hogwarts.' With a wicked smile, she took a sip. Sirius, grinning approvingly, reached for his drink at the same time as Harry.

'Harry, I'm impressed,' he smirked proudly. 'Do tell.'

'Only in the library,' Harry confessed.

'Oh well.' Sirius looked rather disappointed. 'There's still time. What about you, Jade?'

'Definitely not telling. Your turn, Ron,' she said firmly.

Ron appeared to be deep in thought. 'I have never,' he said slowly, 'had feelings for someone in this room.'

There was a very uncomfortable silence. Blushing even more furiously, Ginny drained her glass, while Harry stared awkwardly at his shoes. It seemed to Jade that she, Hermione, Ron and Sirius had all moved to reach for their glasses, but she couldn't be sure, because at that moment Mrs Weasley burst into the room, brandishing her wand.

'_Evanesco!'_ she shrieked, vanishing the Firewhisky. 'Sirius! How could you encourage them!? Ginny, Ron, Harry, Hermione! Bed! Now! This instant!' The four teenagers scampered for the door, dodging the sparks flying angrily from the tip of Mrs Weasley's wand. Glaring at Sirius and pointedly ignoring Jade, she flounced from the room.

Jade grimaced. 'I'd better go,' she said, reaching for the canister of Floo Powder on the mantelpiece.

Sirius took her hand to help her into the fireplace. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, he kissed her lightly on the cheek. 'Happy Christmas, Jade.'


	3. Solace

**3. Solace**

Sirius leaned against the front door, listening to the retreating footsteps of Harry and the others, on their way to catch the Knight Bus to Hogwarts. His mind was clouded with cold despair, and anger towards himself for being unable to find the words he wanted to say to Harry. There were so many things he needed to tell his godson, but he had been frozen by the desolate sense of...premonition, that he would never see Harry again. He had never told anyone that he loved them; he could not find the words in that brief moment of farewell. His limbs ached to run after them in the snow, to leave this dark, oppressive house, to run outside, to grasp that fleeting moment of illusion in which Padfoot was running with Prongs again. But he stood still and leaned his head against the door, closing his eyes.

A cold hand grasped his in the dimness. 'He knows, Sirius,' said Jade softly. 'He knows'. She reached up and put her arms around his neck, holding him as if she could draw his pain into herself. The sound of Harry's footsteps walking away echoed in Sirius's head. If his tears had not all been shed an eternity ago he might have wept.

The stood in the hallway, the darkness and silence of the empty house enclosing them. After a long moment of stillness, Sirius stood back, and looked into Jade's eyes, seeing his isolation and longing reflected there. He ran his hands down Jade's back and felt her shiver. Tangling his fingers in her long dark hair, he raised her face to his and kissed her, first gently, tentatively, then with deepening intensity as she responded to him. He gasped softly, it had been so long...

The sound was just enough to awaken Mrs Black's portrait. Her eyes flew open, instantly filled with rage. 'ABOMINATION OF MY FLESH AND HIS MUDBLOOD WHORE!'

Sirius wrenched the curtains closed, cursing harshly. Panting, and sweeping his hair from his eyes, he turned to Jade, expecting to find her angry and mortified. To his surprise, she was laughing, her eyes mischievous. 'I hardly expected her to approve,' she whispered, grinning as she reached for him again. Sirius laughed too, almost without bitterness this time. He took her hand and they ran softly up the stone stairs, falling onto Sirius' bed, two lone stars colliding, burning a fiery path toward their oblivion.


	4. Sanctuary

**4. Sanctuary**

Jade was running frantically down a corridor. Fluorescent lights reflected coldly off the gleaming, green tiled floor, flickering ahead of her. Her feet were sliding on the polished surface and she couldn't sprint any faster. Heavy footsteps echoed behind her, closer and closer, drumming in her head as they closed in on her. Cold, strong hands clamped her arms. She tried to wrench herself free, but a needle pierced her vein and a dull, deadening sensation flooded her limbs, her brain. She tried and tried to scream, but could not make a sound.

'Jade, wake up...' Sirius's voice penetrated her nightmare. She opened her eyes. By the light of the embers glowing in the fireplace, she could see the outline of his face, etched with concern. 'You were trembling...was it the same dream?' he asked softly.

She nodded, taking a shaky breath. 'Sorry I woke you.'

'Don't be sorry,' Sirius said, hugging her to him. She could feel the warmth of his body slowly penetrating the iciness inside her, as he stroked her hair tenderly and gently kissed the top of her head. After a few moments, he turned and leaned on his elbow to look down into her eyes. 'Jade...'

She looked at him questioningly.

'Promise me...you won't ever try to...hurt yourself again?'

Her eyes widened in surprise. 'That was a really long time ago – you don't have to worry about it.'

Sirius frowned. 'I know...but promise me...please.'

'I promise,' Jade said sleepily, curling into the circle of his arms.

Jade woke several hours later to the drumming of cold February rain against the dark windows. Iridescent grey light filtered through the heavy curtains. She sighed, wishing she didn't have to wake up and engage with another day. Being in this room with Sirius was like a sanctuary, where the world couldn't touch them. An unspoken consent between them said that no one else should know of their relationship. Things were just too complicated...Eventually, Jade knew, they would have to face up to a reality check, but for the moment their stolen hours and nights together signified an enchanted respite from the tensions of work, the Order, Sirius's confinement to the house and the sullen bitterness that overcame him...a quiet place in the midst of the storm, where thunder and rain passed them by.

Sirius regarded her sleepily. 'What time is it?' Since it was impossible to Apparate or Disapparate into or out of 12 Grimmauld Place – only within it (to the constant amusement of Fred and George) – Jade used the fireplace in Sirius's room to leave for work undetected.

Jade glanced at her watch. 'Oh God, I'm going to be so late!' she exclaimed, leaping out of bed and scanning the passage for passers-by, before darting across the landing to run the bath. Sirius sat on the edge of the claw-footed bath tub while Jade bathed and washed her hair, on the pretext that it would appear suspicious for his bathroom to be occupied whilst he was still in bed. Jade dressed quickly, her hair dripping down the back of her robes. She reached for the Floo Powder, only to find the canister empty. 'Damn it! I forgot I finished it yesterday. Now what?'

Sirius frowned thoughtfully. 'I'll see if anyone is in the kitchen. If I'm not back in five minutes, Apparate downstairs, and you can use the fireplace there.'

A few minutes later, Jade appeared in the chilly kitchen. Recklessly, Sirius slid his hands around her waist, and drew her towards him for a devastatingly sweet, lingering kiss. 'Do you want us to get caught?' Jade whispered, trying to sound reproving, though her pulse had quickened.

'This is my new version of living on the edge,' Sirius murmured sardonically, tracing his finger down the curve of her neck. Footsteps were approaching the kitchen. Jade just had time to step towards the fireplace and attempt to assume an innocent expression before Severus Snape appeared in the doorway. His cold eyes swept the room, taking in Jade's wet hair and flushed cheeks, and Sirius's fading smirk. 'Black, busy as usual?' he said snidely. 'And Miss Magellan, don't you have some i's to dot somewhere?'

'So you'll give Dumbledore that urgent message as soon as he arrives, Sirius?' Jade requested in a business-like tone. She threw Snape a dirty look as she took a pinch of Floo Powder. 'I have to get straight to work. Surely you're needed at Hogwarts, Professor? Don't you have some pupils to torment this morning?'

Jade glanced back at Sirius as she stepped into the warm green flames. She was dismayed to see that the laughter had already faded from his grey eyes, leaving only the dull and bitter hauntedness that had become so familiar.


	5. Requiem

**5. Requiem**

Harry Potter drew a ragged breath as he closed the door of 12 Grimmauld Place behind him. He set his trunk down on the floor, as silently as possible, still grasping his wand, and the old teacup Dumbledore had sent as a portkey for his flight from Privet Drive. He stood in the gloom of the hallway, overwhelmed by memory, recalling with an intensity that made him shiver the sense of foreboding, the foreshadowing of death he had experienced the first time he crossed this threshold. And Sirius's swift hug and gruff goodbye last Christmas, an eternity ago.

The house was silent. It seemed he was alone. Harry hoped wretchedly to find his godfather's presence lingering somewhere in the house. Lupin had packed Sirius's few possessions and sent them to Harry, but he could not find his godfather in the pages of his books...perhaps there might have been something left in his room. As Harry climbed the stone stairs, Sirius's voice echoed in his mind, '_God rest ye merry Hippogriffs...'_ He had been happy then, so happy, just to have guests at Christmas. Not to be locked up, alone, again.

Harry crept past Buckbeak, who looked lonely and miserable even in his sleep. A pile of dead rats lay uneaten on the grimy stone floor beside him. Silence hung oppressively in the dark house, and the door to Sirius's room creaked loudly as Harry opened it, his blood pounding in desperate anticipation. He didn't even know what he was looking for, but if he could find something of Sirius there....

The room was not empty. Jade Magellan lay on Sirius's bed, her eyes burning in her white face as she stared unseeingly at the ceiling. She jumped, startled, as he entered the room. 'Harry!' she exclaimed, her shadowed eyes stricken. 'I didn't know you were...' she trailed off.

'Um, sorry,' Harry mumbled, confused. His gaze was trapped in hers, his pain mirrored in her eyes and he paused, transfixed, as he realised... 'You and Sirius were...?'

Jade nodded, mutely. The she gave a tiny, ineffably sad smile. 'Since Christmas...It was the first time in my life I wasn't alone. But...' her words were tumbling out now... 'Harry, Sirius never loved anybody as he loved you. He'd rather have died saving you than been locked up here...'

'But he didn't have to die,' Harry said savagely. 'It was a stupid, cruel, evil, pointless...He never got to live his life. He was locked up in Azkaban and he was locked up here...he hated it...and now he's dead because of me.' He was crying now, past caring what this near-stranger thought of him, grief he could no longer constrain howling and tearing though him as he collapsed onto the low bed.

Jade put her arms around him. He felt her thin body wracked with sobs as his tears soaked into her hair. Eventually, when his misery had subsided, she sat back, reaching for something on the bedside chest. 'Sirius left this here that night. He carried it with him always, he had it in prison...he told me it was the only thing in Lily and James' house that wasn't destroyed...' She held out, a small, tarnished picture frame. The faded sepia photograph it contained showed Sirius, a young, invincible Sirius, tenderly holding a bundle in his arms, laughing into the camera. Lily and James stood on either side of him, their arms about Sirius, smiling rapturously at the bundle in his arms.

Jade took a shaky breath, 'I think Sirius knew he might not come back that night. He left this here for you.'

Harry nodded, unable to speak. Holding the small frame in both hands, he stared at it for a long time. 'Thank you,' he whispered eventually.

There was silence. The house was completely still. 'Harry, I need to tell you something...you have to be the first to know...'

Harry looked up. Jade seemed awkward, uncertain, absently tugging at a strand of long, dark hair. 'I'm going to have Sirius's child...in November...' She paused, unsure of his reaction.

Harry was quiet for a long moment. 'Did Sirius know?' he asked.

Jade nodded. 'I had it confirmed at St Mungo's a week before...the Healer said it would be a boy. Sirius was really happy...worried, but...happy. We decided to call him James.' She paused. '...James Sirius Magellan Black...' she mused. 'Do you think that's too long?'

'It's a great name,' Harry said gruffly.

'Er...' Harry wished Mrs Weasley or Hermione would open up his head and suggest an appropriate thing to say in this situation. 'Er...how do you...feel?'

She smiled wanly. 'Scared, sick, surreal, and scared again...but mostly happy. I never thought I'd have a family...I know it doesn't bring Sirius back, but it feels like part of him will still be here, still with us...Harry...I'll understand if you don't want to, or if you need to think about it...but...would you be his godfather...and his guardian, once you're of age...?'

Harry was too overwhelmed to speak. His throat was constricted and tears stung his raw eyes. With a bittersweet smile, he looked into Jade's rain-blue eyes and nodded.

In the dim silence, the old radio Sirius had been trying to fix gave a static crackle, then a muffled refrain echoed up the stairs...

_Now and then when I see her face  
She takes me away to that special place  
And if I stared too long  
I'd probably break down and cry  
_

_Sweet child o' mine  
Sweet love of mine_

_--Lyrics quoted are by Axl Rose_


	6. Shades

**6. Shades**

Harry paused as he reached the stile at the foot of the mountain, remembering the great, shaggy black dog that had eagerly awaited him there on a silver-sunshiny winter day long past. The memorial procession followed the same stony path up the hillside on which Harry, Hermione and Ron had followed Padfoot, on a day that seemed so long ago. Clad in black, they walked on slowly and silently in the fading light. Each paused to select a rock and they carried these burdens up the winding path that cut into the side of the mountain. As the last burnished rays of sunshine bled from the grey-purple sky, they entered a small clearing, enclosed by a gloomy temple of dark fir trees. On entering the shrine, each black-robed figure stepped forward in turn, whispered a soft incantation, and laid their rock beside a shallow, moss-shrouded depression in the earth, forming a low mound of pale stones. Finally, Harry placed his offering on the cairn, experiencing a brief sense of reprieve in laying down a burden, before sorrow sank heavily on him once more.

They stood, encircled in profound silence for a long moment, before Dumbledore's ancient, solemn voice broke the stillness.

'Sirius Black was one of the bravest people I have ever met; a man of true courage and pure integrity. Like the star for which he was named, the brightest in the sky, he radiated the light of truth amidst the darkness of his heritage, and the times through which he lived. Even as a small boy, he rebelled against the evil he saw in the world around him, against prejudice and oppression. His every action was fuelled by his demand for justice and his abiding and powerful love for his friends. If Sirius had to die – and I do not for a moment deny that his death was a cruel tragedy – he would have wished to die thus, defiant in the face of evil, fighting as a revolutionary, avenging the death of his friends, defending the one he loved most in the world.'

'The shrine we have formed here tonight is known as an _isivivane_ cairn. This is an ancient sanctuary where one can confess the burdens of one's heart, lay down one's sorrows, seek reconciliation with the ancestral spirits, and ask for their guidance and direction. We believe the dead we have loved never truly leave us. The presence of Sirius Black, his shadow, will abide here as we remember him tonight, and in returning to this place, those who loved him can make their peace with his spirit.'

The circle of mourners stood in silence once more, each lost in their own reverie of memories, sorrow and regret. Darkness had fallen, and cold, distant stars were scattered in the everlasting night sky. Harry wondered if the stars mourned too, as they grieved the loss of a star fallen from their midst, a bright star burned into oblivion. Eventually, Dumbledore spoke again. 'I have asked Harry, as Sirius's godson, to say a final farewell.'

The previous evening, after Dumbledore had made this request, Harry had sat on his bed for a long time, thinking of what he might say at Sirius's memorial, and had realised that he did not have the words to describe the aching, desperate sense of loss and emptiness inside him. Eventually he fell into an exhausted and troubled sleep, and woke at dawn to find a leather-bound book beside his bed, neatly labelled, 'Hermione J. Granger, Form 1A'. Opening it to the place she had marked, Harry found a poem which to him expressed the enormity of the loss he had experienced, the feeling that he could not continue to exist, that life could not go on without Sirius in it.

Murmuring _'lumos'_, Harry opened the book to read. Under the light of the waning moon, he could dimly make out the faces in the circle around the cairn. Dumbledore looked older and more sorrowful than Harry had ever seen him. Lupin's tired face was etched with pain, and his eyes were bright with unshed tears. Jade stood in the shadows, her grief laid bare as tears coursed unchecked down her pale cheeks, her jaw clenched as though to suppress the howl of sorrow that threatened to escape her bloodless lips.

Harry didn't realise that he was crying until he tasted the salt of desolate tears on his lips. His eyes burned, and when he opened his mouth to begin reading, no sound would come forth. Panic overwhelming him, blood pounding in his ears, he looked around desperately, and his eyes met Ginny's. Mutely, she reached out and Harry thrust the book at her. 'Please read it,' he pleaded in a hoarse whisper.

In a low, clear voice that trembled but did not break until the end, Ginny read:

_Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,  
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,  
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum  
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.  
  
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead  
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.  
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,  
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.  
  
He was my North, my South, my East and West,  
My working week and my Sunday rest,  
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;  
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.  
  
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,  
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,  
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;  
For nothing now can ever come to any good._

(Funeral Blues, W H Auden)

The moon was obliterated by a smoky cloud, and the shrine fell into darkness as the mourners turned to follow the stony path back down the mountain. Harry hesitated, letting the others pass ahead of him, as he wanted to linger at the cairn for a few more moments, to say goodbye alone. Once everyone had left the clearing, Harry turned back. In that instant, the cloud passed, moonlight filtered through the treetops, and he saw a dark-haired figure seated behind the earthy hollow, her arms wrapped around her knees, her head bowed, sobbing brokenheartedly. Harry walked away, leaving Jade in solitude.

Dinner that night at 12 Grimmauld Place was a dismal event. Mrs Weasley was endeavouring in her motherly way to cheer people up, but even failed to engage Hermione in a discussion about NEWT subjects. Harry was trying to eat his dinner, to avoid arousing her concern, but the food tasted like cardboard, and he felt like choking every time he tried to swallow. Ginny didn't even seem to be aware that there was a plate of food in front of her; she was staring blankly at the wall. Lupin was swigging morosely at the dregs of his wine, his plate also untouched. Fred and George looked as though they had never laughed in their lives. Jade had refused wine, and was moving food absently around her plate with her fork, her reddened eyes lowered. Tonks, whose hair was black and cropped almost to her skull, was weeping silently, tears plopping into her goblet as she sipped her wine.

The sombre silence had prevailed so long that several people jumped when Dumbledore spoke. 'Gringotts will release Sirius's last will and testament from his vault early tomorrow morning. We need to meet to witness the reading of his will, and to discuss its outcomes in terms of the future of the Order. Arthur, will you alert the members who are not with us tonight? Everyone should be present - '

Mrs Weasley glanced from Dumbledore to Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny.

'Everyone,' Dumbledore confirmed.' The terms of the Black legacy may mean that the House of Black – and its servant – will become the property of the Malfoy family, now that the last Black is deceased. The implications for the Order and each person involved are significant. The concealment of our knowledge, our sources of information and our plans could be at risk. There can be no more secrets kept from those who are loyal to the Order. We will meet tomorrow, to read Sirius's testament, and to prepare for what our future holds.'

Harry had expected to lie awake all night, reliving the vigil at the cairn, and the moment when Sirius fell through the veil, falling away from him...Yet he fell into a deep slumber almost immediately, and had a vivid dream. He was sitting on the hillside where they had walked earlier, talking to Sirius. It was a summer day, and the sun fell warm on his back. Sirius's grey eyes glinted with mischief as he laughed at something Harry had said, and he tousled Harry's messy hair, half-teasingly, half-affectionately. Then his eyes reflected concern and thoughtfulness as he listened to something Harry was telling him. Harry could not remember what they spoke about, but he knew that Sirius had been there, listening to him and talking to him, and he had the feeling that something that had been worrying him for a long time was resolved, that happiness was within his reach. He woke in the pre-dawn stillness, devastatingly disappointed, yet strangely comforted, not quite alone.

_--The title Shades is borrowed from the novel by Marguerite Poland_

_--The poem _Funeral Blues _is by WH Auden_


	7. Revelations

**7. Revelations**

Jade sat alone in the chilly kitchen, clasping a mug of tea for its warmth, although she could not bring herself to drink it. Anxiety and nausea had kept her awake throughout the long, disturbed night. Eventually, as the pale grey light of dawn filtered through the dark curtains, and birds began twittering outside, she had given up on sleep and come downstairs. She usually made sure she was up before the rest of the house, as no one apart from Harry had yet realised that she was sleeping in Sirius's bedroom, which had been left closed since Lupin had gathered his personal belongings. Jade frowned painfully as she recalled the unpleasant scene that had resulted in her seeking refuge at Grimmauld Place. In the weeks after Sirius's death her morning sickness had intensified, and her housemates at the wizarding residence had soon reached the correct conclusion as to her condition. They had made it very clear that an infant in their house would interfere with their studies and social lives. They had gone so far as to imply that Jade was promiscuous, and should be ashamed of bringing an illegitimate child into the world. Her face burned with rage at the memory and her fingers clenched around her hot mug.

Slowly, the house grumbled into life. Jade greeted people absently in a dull tone as they wandered sleepily into the kitchen, making coffee, tea and toast. Her stomach lurched unpleasantly at the smell of the eggs Mrs Weasley was cooking on the stove. She nibbled unenthusiastically at a corner of her dry toast. The front door kept opening, and muffled whispers were heard as the members of the Order arriving for the meeting crept past Mrs Black's portrait. The seats around the long kitchen table began to fill up.

Jade's hands were shaking slightly against the now cold mug of tea, and she hid them under the table. She felt nervous and apprehensive. Her grief for Sirius was still so raw she feared she might break down entirely at the mention of his name. An intensely private person, she dreaded the exposure of her intimate relationship with Sirius, and the attention and speculation that would be aroused by the news that she was expecting his child. Jade was also plagued with worry and uncertainty about her future. She knew that Sirius had sent to Gringotts for his will in order to amend it as soon as her pregnancy had been confirmed, but they had not hadn't had an opportunity to discuss his decision in those few days before...

If she couldn't remain at 12 Grimmauld Place, Jade truly did not know where she could go, and it seemed that the loss of her job was imminent. She hated the thought of being confronted once again with the prejudice and scorn that others had already shown her. She sighed as she remembered Sirius's reckless kiss on that long ago morning, and the spiteful gleam in Snape's eyes when she and Sirius had encountered him in the kitchen.

Harry shot her a sympathetic glance as he walked past with Ron, and Jade smiled bleakly, taking courage for his sake. They shared a bond of mutual pain that no one else could comprehend, and Jade's heart bled to see the agony in his eyes. She had been moved beyond words by Harry's response to her request that he be named James' godfather. _She was carrying Sirius's child. Bringing his son into the world was the most awesome thing she would do in her life._ She sat up straight, resolutely, just as Dumbledore strode into the now crowded kitchen, carrying a single roll of parchment. Everyone hurried to their places; then the room fell silent as Dumbledore took his place at the end of the table. Just one seat was empty. Mr Weasley, who had been counting out chairs, scanned the room, perplexed.

Severus Snape swept through the door, his cold black eyes glittering almost exultantly. He marched straight to Dumbledore, saying in a low, urgent voice, 'Professor Dumbledore, I have devised a plan. All might not be lost. When Narcissa Malfoy takes possession of the Black family inheritance, I shall be able to...'

He broke off as Dumbledore raised a hand to silence him. 'Not yet, Severus. We must first read Sirius's testament.' Snape took his seat reluctantly. Jade's glance met his cold, calculating stare for an instant. His eyes held no grief.

A solemn silence fell over the gathered people as Dumbledore broke the seal on the scroll. He unrolled it and Jade caught a glimpse of Sirius's familiar heavy black scrawl dashing across the thick parchment. For a moment it was as if she was watching Sirius's hand move again, the muscles taught in his forearm as he wrote. As if he was right there, beside her as he once had been. A stab of longing pierced her. She took a deep breath, trying to concentrate on the long preamble of legal jargon Dumbledore was reading out...

'I, Sirius Black, being of sound mind, hereby declare that this is my final will and testament.'

'This document is dated less than a week before Sirius's death,' Dumbledore observed solemnly, rubbing a hand over his creased forehead before continuing.

'The covenant binding the legacy of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black' – Jade could almost hear Sirius's bitter sneer echoing behind Dumbledore's calm voice – 'stipulates that in the event of the current owner's death, the property, 12 Grimmauld Place, it's contents, and the house-elf bound to serve the Black family, shall fall to the inheritance of the nearest living relative of the House of Black.'

A collective gasp of intense dismay hissed around the table. Snape's eyes narrowed thoughtfully, reflecting a glint of power.

'I therefore bequeath my heritage of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black' – the sneer was triumphant this time – 'to my son, James Magellan Black. I appoint Jade Magellan as trustee of this legacy until our son attains his majority, whereupon he shall be awarded full custodianship of 12 Grimmauld Place, on behalf of the Order of the Phoenix.'

There was a stunned silence. Each pair of eyes swivelled from the parchment in Dumbledore's hands to Jade. The room was so quiet that the ticking of revelation registering in each person's thoughts was almost audible. _Sirius and Jade were lovers. She is having his child. The Headquarters is safe. A baby named James..._Jade looked at Remus; he was grinning, though she could still see the sorrow hidden behind his tired eyes.

Snape muttered something under his breath. His voice was too low for Jade to hear the words, but his spiteful tone was unmistakable.

'What did you say?' demanded Ginny.

'Are you addressing me, Miss Weasley? I did not hear you refer to me as Sir or Professor,' Snape replied in a venomous voice, glowering at her.

'I don't think this has anything to do with you being my teacher, _Snape_. _What did you say?_' Ginny repeated, dangerously.

Goaded, Snape snarled back, 'I said, "once again, Black's lack of responsibility has saved the day".'

Ginny's chair crashed to the floor behind her as she stood up violently. 'How dare you?' she yelled, her eyes smouldering, her fists clenched; she was practically spitting with rage.

'Ginny!' squeaked Mrs Weasley faintly.

'Apologise!' roared Harry, kicking his chair out of the way as he rose, his anger thundering before him.

'Sit down, Miss Weasley, Mr Potter.' Dumbledore's voice was firm.

Harry regarded Jade, appalled at Snape's vicious attack on his godfather, and his audacious judgment of Sirius and Jade's most private affairs. Jade shrugged, sighing heavily. Snape's reaction had been even harsher than she had anticipated, but after the response of her housemates, she had not expected the news to be particularly welcome. _You're used to being alone_, she reminded herself, biting her lip and willing the tears from her grey-blue eyes. The cherished time she had shared with Sirius had been made to appear so sordid; the child miraculously growing inside her to seem like a careless mistake. Her eyes welled up again as she thought desperately, _'it wasn't a misake! It wasn't. This wasn't supposed to be possible, but I want it so badly now. I want this child more than I've ever wanted anything...'_

'Severus, you have gone too far.' Dumbledore's blue eyes were cold and sharp with anger. 'Do you not remember the circumstances of Miss Magellan's arrival at Hogwarts?'

Jade buried her burning face in her hands, praying that Dumbledore would not go on. Let them think what they liked about her...

As if reading her thoughts, Dumbledore said, very quietly, 'Miss Magellan, it would be better for them to know the truth...you have nothing to be ashamed of.'

Despite her reticence, Jade knew he was right. _Sirius always told the truth._ She nodded slowly, her face still curtained by her dark hair.

'The Messengers sent to tell Miss Magellan's parents of her acceptance at Hogwarts informed me that they had been banished from the house. When Jade failed to arrive at Hogwarts and I discovered that she had been admitted to a Muggle institution, I grew concerned. I invoked a protective charm over her, to the effect that if she were ever in mortal danger, she would immediately be transported to Hogwarts.'

Jade couldn't raise her head. Mrs Weasley's eyes brimmed with tears. Ginny was still glaring at Snape, frowning thunderously. Hermione's mouth had fallen open in horror, and a tear trickled down her cheek. Harry, still standing, stared at Dumbledore aghast, realising what he meant...

'When Miss Magellan appeared in the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey summoned a Healer from St Mungo's to examine her. The Healer deemed it necessary to inform Miss Magellan that while she would make a full recovery from her physical injuries, the heavy dosages of Muggle drugs with which she had been treated would exact a lasting toll; she would never bear children. This news means that a mysterious and powerful magic has been invoked...truly, a miracle has taken place.'

Turning to Snape, Dumbledore continued. 'Severus, I had hoped you would not carry your hatred for Sirius past the grave. Your resentment will destroy you if you cannot control it. You may leave us now; the next meeting of the Order will be convened tomorrow.' Snape stalked from the room, his plan – his moment of heroism – thwarted, his hatred as poisonous as ever.

Shaking, Harry picked up his chair from the floor and sat down, his eyes filled with tears of anguish and rage.

'Miss Magellan – Jade,' Dumbledore said gently. She raised her head, wiping her eyes, and Dumbledore smiled kindly at her. 'May I be the first to offer you my congratulations, and fervent wishes for your health and happiness? I believe I speak for everyone in this room when I say we will do everything in our power to support you and your child...James,' he added quietly, his ancient blue eyes filmed with tears.

'James Sirius,' intoned Harry softly, his voice still trembling. '...Yeah, anything we can do to help...'

Ginny and Hermione nodded in agreement. Mrs Weasley had burst into tears. Lupin, seated next to Jade, stroked her hand sympathetically. 'Jade, he said, 'anything I can do... really. I am always here if you need me. Congratulations!' His blue eyes filled with a joy that was almost drowned in sadness, but he was smiling nonetheless.

Jade weakly returned the smile, saying quietly, 'Thank you, Remus...' Crookshanks leapt softly into Jade's lap and curled comfortingly there.

Jade felt too overwhelmed to speak. In a few moments she had experienced the agony of having her deepest pain and intimacy laid bare in front of a room full of people, followed by the warmth and comfort of love and acceptance far beyond her wildest expectations. She felt as if she had come home.

After a long moment, Dumbledore said, 'There are just a few further points we need to cover.' He picked up the parchment again and read, 'My personal estate, contained in Gringotts vault 711, is to be conferred to Jade Magellan, Harry Potter and Remus Lupin accordingly...' More legal jargon and figures followed.

'Finally, Sirius has made some brief personal addresses,' declared Dumbledore. 'Remus – Moony – loyal friend, I never told you how much I valued your belief in me. Thank you. Harry, it is only fitting that you should be named godfather to James. I will never forget how happy your parents were when you were born and how honoured I was to be your guardian. Jade, your love gave me freedom and made me a better man. I will love each of you, always.'

There was a profound silence. Sirius's words seemed so rushed and urgent, and yet so poignant, as his love and loss echoed from beyond the veil.

Since the Order meeting had been postponed until the next day, Fred and George suggested a trip to Diagon Alley. Somewhat surprisingly, Mrs Weasley smiled indulgently, and nodded. 'Off you go. You all need to get out for a bit.'

'There's a park at the end of the road where we can play some Quidditch,' Fred suggested, tentatively.

'Yeah, Harry,' added George encouragingly. 'We've got some Back-spinning Bludgers we want to try out on you.'

'And a Souped-up Snitch.' Fred grinned.

Harry hesitated. Playing Quidditch seemed too normal... Yet, suddenly, he could almost feel the wind tearing through his hair, the oblivion of flying, of going so fast there was no room in his mind for anything but speed and space. Anything that would distract him from the raw, searing pain inside him. He ran upstairs, grabbing his and Ron's broomsticks and wrapping them in his invisibility cloak for the walk to Diagon Alley. 'Coming, Hermione?' he asked as he dashed back down the stairs, frantic to get outside, to be anywhere but in this dark, oppressive house crowded with hollow memories of the grey-eyed man who had been there just weeks before, and left such emptiness and longing in his wake.

'Yeah, let me just get a book to read while you're playing. Jade?' Hermione asked hesitantly. 'Do you want to come?'

'Thanks,' Jade shook her head, smiling wryly. 'I think I'll just stay here and have a sleep on the bathroom floor.'

Hermione grimaced sympathetically, patting her shoulder in a motherly manner. Mrs Weasley was calling her from the kitchen. 'Hermione, could I ask you to pick up some things from the Apothecary's while you're there?'

'Of course,' said Hermione willingly, leaving Jade in order to hurry to the kitchen.

'Hurry _up_, Ginny!' called Ron, also impatient to be out of the desolate house, as Ginny wandered slowly down the stairs.

'Where's your broom, Gin?' Harry asked.

'Um, actually I'm going to stay here...I've got to write a letter...'Ginny mumbled vaguely, turning and wandering back up the stairs again.

'Mental,' muttered Ron, giving Harry a perplexed look.

Harry shrugged. 'Let's go, then.'

'Onward, intrepid discoverers!' declared George.

'Forerunners of Quidditch as never played before!' added Fred, seizing the invisible bundle of brooms from Harry, and narrowly missing swiping Mrs Black's portrait as he led the way through the front door.

From her bedroom window, Jade saw Ginny sitting in the courtyard, Crookshanks curled beneath her chair. The sun burnished her copper hair as she bent earnestly over a piece of parchment, biting the end of her quill.

A semblance of normality had returned to 12 Grimmauld Place by dinner that evening. Arthur Weasley, Bill, Kingsley, Mad-Eye and Tonks were engaged in an animated discussion of strategies for the Order. Mrs Weasley kept glaring at them, and they automatically lowered their voices, before remembering that Dumbledore had lifted the ban of secrecy for underage members. Then they would resume conversing loudly, banging their fists and goblets by way of emphasis.

Mrs Weasley had given Hermione a list of ingredients to purchase in Diagon Alley, for a potion she had always used to cure morning sickness, and was explaining the process of concocting it in great detail, as Hermione laid the ingredients out in front of her. 'So if I add the Pifflepods at midnight, then leave it to simmer until dawn...' Hermione mused.

'That's right,' Mrs Weasley confirmed, 'then stir in the powdered acacia-root, and the lavender essence just before you take it off the heat.'

Lupin was staring distractedly at the goblet in front of him. Although the full moon was over a week away, his eyes were heavily shadowed, and his face hollow. It looked as though he hadn't slept in days.

Fred, George and Ron were enthusing about the performance of the Back-spinning Bludgers, while lamenting the disappearance of the Souped-up Snitch, which was still zooming about somewhere over London, or possibly the Atlantic.

Hermione, who seemed to feel the need to prevent any awkward silences, had begun telling Harry, Ginny and Jade – or anyone who would listen – about the fascinating new Arithmancy book she had discovered in Flourish and Blotts. Harry was staring unseeingly out of the window, nodding absently now and then. Ginny was unenthusiastically pushing food around her plate with her fork, glancing frequently from the window, to Harry, to Jade, biting her lip as if she was on the point of saying something, but couldn't find the words.

Hermione paused, having run out of conversation and realising that her attempts at distraction were having little effect. Hesitantly, she asked, 'Jade, are you going to be able to manage with work, and everything...?'

'I think they've drafted my redundant letter already,' she said sardonically. 'I've taken so many days off now...But with being able to stay here, and the money Sirius left I'll be fine. He wanted me to stop working there anyway, and take up studying again after the baby was born.' Jade smiled, hearing Sirius's voice as clearly as if he were sitting beside her. _'For God's sake, woman! You should be writing your own books, not editing the rubbish other people produce. I think I should keep you at home and chain you to a desk for two hours a day...'_

Hermione beamed at the mention of higher learning. 'What would you want to study?' she asked enthusiastically, latching on immediately to this new form of distraction.

'Don't laugh,' Jade said. 'But I was always really interested in History of Magic, you know, the political analysis side of it...I wanted to study it further after school, but...'

Just then, a large tawny owl swooped though the window, and dropped a letter in front of Ginny. Blushing, she tore it open, holding it so that no one could see the writing. Her hands seemed to be shaking slightly. Jade turned to talk to Harry and Hermione again, and when she glanced back at Ginny, it looked as though she was brushing away a tear.

Hermione had launched into a long explanation about strategies in the Goblin wars. Jade tried to concentrate, but dizziness was closing in on her. She took a sip of water and her stomach heaved again. Dropping her goblet, she rushed from the room.

There was an awkward silence. Mrs Weasley muttered something about wishing she had known to make a potion sooner.

'Er,' said Harry to Hermione, uncertainly. 'Do you think somebody should go check on her? Like...um...a girl?'

Hermione seemed mildly astounded that Harry had thought of this before her. She glanced at Ginny, and the two of them, Ginny still clutching her letter, went upstairs, closely followed by Mrs Weasley.

Jade lay limply on Sirius's bed, damp tendrils of hair clinging to her pale, clammy forehead. She held the blankets to her face, breathing deeply. A trace of Sirius's scent lingered there. She stifled a sob as she heard a tentative knock on the door.

'Are you okay?' Hermione whispered.

'I'll be fine,' Jade said wearily, breathing through her blankets once more.

'The potion should be ready in the morning. It really helps a lot – I used it with each of mine,' Mrs Weasley encouraged her fondly. 'Oh, the Rock Rose and the Clematis should go in right away. And I'd better shred the Impatiens. Hermione, don't forget the Pifflepods must go in at exactly midnight,' she reminded her in a bossy tone, and bustled off back to the larder.

'I'll get some fresh water.' Hermione picked up an empty goblet and headed to the bathroom.

Ginny sat down on the end of the bed. Jade noticed the letter clasped in her hand. 'Are you okay, Gin, you seemed...upset earlier?' she asked tentatively.

Ginny frowned. 'I broke up with Dean,' she said slowly.

'Oh my God, I'm sorry...I thought things were going well with him?' said Jade, looking at her with concern.

Ginny smiled sadly. 'They were. But I started thinking about you and Sirius...and how you never know when your chances are going to run out...Dean's sweet, and we have fun together...but I know he's never going to be the love of my life...I feel so bad, he's been really nice about it,' she glanced at the parchment in her lap, 'but he doesn't really understand and I know I've hurt him...'

Jade regarded her sympathetically. 'So, if Dean's not the one, then who...?'

Ginny started as Hermione returned with the water. She smiled ironically at Jade and shrugged. 'You know who.'


	8. Restitution

**8. Restitution**

'I can't believe how hot it is,' grumbled Ron, flopping down on the grass in the hot, sunny courtyard of 12 Grimmauld Place. Lazily, he flicked his wand and summoned a goblet of chilled pumpkin juice. Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Jade and Lupin were already sprawled out on the lawn, liberally splattered with blobs of pale blue paint. With just two weeks of school holidays left, Mrs Weasley had commandeered a work party to prepare one of the upstairs rooms as a nursery for little James. The gloomy walls seemed to resist the imposition of such pastel cheerfulness, with the result that the paint had to be applied rather forcefully. Harry had suggested the use of rollers, but this Muggle convention had not met with much approval.

'I told you we should have used a permanent sticking charm,' Hermione chided, trying with little effect to vanish the paint from her jeans.

'We've had enough trouble with permanent sticking charms in this house,' observed Jade, who had spent half an hour trying to close the curtains over Mrs Black's portrait earlier, while being subjected to a vicious diatribe on Mudbloods and half-breeds. Mrs Black's temper had hardly been improved by the realisation that her late son had consorted with a Mudblood to produce her heir.

Mrs Weasley's voice rang out from the kitchen, calling them to lunch. Jade leaned back on her elbows as the others wandered inside, inhaling the warm, earthy scent of the garden. Getting up seemed to require an enormous effort. Mrs Weasley's rescue potion continued to keep her morning sickness at bay, but as she grew heavier, she felt continuously exhausted. Remus, a comfortable presence, always sensitive to her needs, must have noticed her weary expression, and reached out a hand to help her up. Jade observed the tiredness etched into his thin face, the almost feral, haunted quality of his eyes. _Full moon tonight, _she realised, as she took his hand.

Just as Lupin tugged her to her feet, Jade gave a sharp cry and fell back to the ground. 'What is it?' he demanded urgently, dropping to his knees beside her, his forehead creased in concern. 'What's wrong?'

'Oh my God,' Jade exclaimed, half-laughing, almost sobbing. 'I felt him kicking...for the first time...'

Lupin regarded her in wonder. Hesitantly, he reached out. Jade took his hand in hers, and placed it on the swell of her belly. He could feel the movement beneath her paint-splattered black shirt. So small, yet strong, like a heartbeat...Sirius's heartbeat...He smiled faintly, and the worry left his blue eyes for a moment.

The baby grew still again. Inexplicably, Jade felt anxiety rising within her. Her child suddenly seemed so real, so alive. She struggled to breathe, as if this weight of responsibility had thumped her directly in the chest. This tiny, fragile human being was dependent on her alone. She tried to force herself to calm down, to breathe slowly, but she was almost hyperventilating as panic threatened to overcome her.

Remus placed his hands on Jade's shoulders, looking directly into her eyes. 'Shhh...you're going to be fine...take a deep breath...'he instructed her quietly. Eventually, Jade felt her breathing return to normal. She blinked away the tears that had gathered in her eyes.

'Sorry, I just...' she faltered. 'I'm so scared,' she finally admitted. 'Neurotic, huh? But what if I turn out to be a terrible mother? What if I do something wrong?'

'I think once you're a mother you'll know what to do,' Lupin counselled softly. 'And if you don't, Molly will be there to tell you.' He grinned encouragingly, despite the angst written in his eyes. 'You'll never be alone, Jade, I promise.'

Jade gave him a weak smile in return, and took Remus's hand as he pulled her to her feet.

The kitchen was cool and dim after the bright heat outside; the yeasty smell of freshly baked bread and a tang of oranges filled the air. Hermione was pleading with Mrs Weasley. 'Please can we just give him some bread...he's been locked in that cupboard for weeks now.'

'Jade, come and eat, dear,' said Mrs Weasley in a motherly tone, putting an arm around Jade's shoulders and steering her towards the table. 'What was that, Hermione?' she asked distractedly.

'Kreacher...can't we just give him some bread? We can't leave him to starve to death in that cupboard, surely?'

'I'm sorry, dear, but those are Dumbledore's orders. He's put an anti-disapparation jinx, and an unbreakable charm on the cupboard, but we can't risk opening it.'

'Kreacher's got enough fleas, anyway,' snarled Harry bitterly. 'He can eat those if he gets hungry.'

Ginny nodded vehemently, regarding the cupboard with hatred in her brown eyes.

'Remus, don't forget your potion this afternoon,' Mrs Weasley fussed.

'I won't,' Lupin sighed, frowning.

Ron tumbled clumsily through the door at that moment, gasping breathlessly, 'Buckbeak! I think something's wrong with him! He won't wake up...'

'What do you mean, he won't wake up?' demanded Lupin, as they thundered upstairs, ignoring the shrieks now being emitted by Mrs Black's portrait. The Hippogriff lay on the floor, an untouched pile of dead rats beside him. He was completely still, and the healthy sheen had faded from his glossy feathers, leaving them dull.

'I brought his lunch,' Ron gestured towards the rats, 'and he was sleeping – he always wakes up for his food – and I couldn't wake him up...'

Lupin dropped to his knees beside Buckbeak, placing his ear to the Hippogriff's chest. 'He's breathing...but only just.'

Hermione had picked up a water dish, and was gazing at it in horror. 'Look...' she whispered. The dish was coated with a film of white powder.

'What the...?' Lupin snatched the dish from her, and examined it closely. Mrs Black's screams still echoed through the house, but were drowned out for an instant by Lupin's roar. _'Accio Bezoar!'_ A small, greenish-black stone shot through the door and fell into Lupin's hand. He forced Buckbeak's jaw open, and shoved the stone down his throat. After a long, anxious moment the Hippogriff coughed and blinked an orange eye. Hermione sobbed in relief.

'Kreacher.' Lupin cursed hoarsely. Mrs Weasley and Ron had finally succeeded in silencing the portrait, and the house was shrouded in deathly silence. Jade followed Lupin apprehensively, as he stamped down the stairs, and wrenched Kreacher's cupboard open, ignoring Mrs Weasley's squeaks of protest.

Kreacher blinked his watery grey, bloodshot eyes as Lupin dragged him from his den. A stale, mouldy stench drifted from the cupboard. 'Filthy half-breed,' the elf snarled, 'and the Mudblood whore, carrying her bastard child...what would my mistress say if she saw them manhandling poor Kreacher?'

'Kreacher, you know this woman is your mistress now. You will answer her,' Lupin ordered, glaring at the elf. He glanced at Jade.

Her voice low and trembling with fury, Jade demanded. 'Kreacher, did you poison the Hippogriff?'

Kreacher cackled derisively. 'The half-breeds think they can imprison Kreacher in his mistress's house, lock Kreacher in a cupboard...they think Kreacher will take orders from a Mudblood whore! Kreacher obeys his true mistress.'

'How did you get out of the cupboard?' Jade insisted.

'Kreacher knows a lot of things...Foolish blood traitors! They will never know what Kreacher's mistress taught him!' the elf crowed, his vein-webbed eyes popping exultantly.

There was a rush of wings as an owl swooped through the kitchen window. It dropped a piece of parchment on the kitchen table, which Lupin seized. 'Dumbledore.' He tore open the scroll bearing Dumbledore's seal, and read two words inscribed within. _'Destroy him.'_

'_Noooo!'_ screeched Kreacher._ 'Mistress!'_

'I'll do it,' said Harry, fiercely.

Lupin pointed his wand at Kreacher. _'Stupefy'._ Stunned, the elf fell to the floor.

'Put his head on the wall where it belongs,' snarled Ginny, struggling against her mother who was trying to drag her from the room. Her eyes filled with angry tears, reflecting the pain and fury she discerned in Harry's gaze.

Hermione let out a strangled sob.

Lupin regarded Hermione with compassion. 'I'm sorry, but this has to be done. Kreacher will destroy the Order if we don't destroy him first. If he can get out of the cupboard...we can't prevent him leaving the house, going to the Malfoys again. This is the only way to stop him betraying us. He's stunned now, he won't feel anything.' He hoisted the elf's body onto the scullery chopping block. Jade noticed that Lupin's forehead was damp with sweat, his hands were shaking, his face sick with revulsion at the task he was forced to carry out.

Harry entered the room, carrying the rusty axe that usually leaned at the foot of the stairs going out to the garden. He stepped towards Kreacher, his eyes dark with hatred, his jaw clenched in vengeance. Lupin pushed him away, wresting the axe from his grasp. 'Harry, I can't let you do this...'

'Sirius is...because of that foul...' Harry's voice was harsh with loathing.

'I know Harry, but I can't let you kill...I can't make you...'

As Lupin raised the axe, Hermione dissolved into tears against Ron's shoulder. He put an arm round her and patted her awkwardly. Ginny was still struggling against her mother's attempts to cover her eyes. Harry stared unflinchingly at Kreacher. Jade saw Lupin's eyes as he swung the weapon. For an instant, blue bled into amber, and they burned with feral rage and human anguish.

Jade's dreams were troubled that night. Her nightmares resounded with Hermione's sobs, the thud of the axe, the smell of blood, the insistent drumming of life within her, Kreacher's manic cackle...and the familiar haunting image of Sirius's beloved face falling away from her. Blood. Tears. Crazed laughter and howls of despair. She woke, sweating, gasping for breath, screaming and howling still echoing in the tangled remnants of her dreams. Growing louder, more desperate. Moonlight cast ominous shadows about the room. Moonlight. Howling. Fear... _Remus!_

Almost drowning in icy terror, Jade crept to the landing, unconsciously holding a protective hand over her stomach, and peered down the stairs. Remus had transformed. The Wolfsbane had been forgotten. Arthur was chasing the beast into the hallway, brandishing his wand, but his stunning spells kept glancing off the wolf. 'FOUL HALF-BREED!' rent the air as the wolf crashed into the hall table. The beast was now within feet of Arthur, howling with bloodlust. It reared and spun round, but instead of diving for Arthur's throat, the wolf flung itself against the portrait, dragging the curtain from the wall. Exposed, Mrs Black screeched in fury. The beast's claws slashed the canvas, its teeth tore through the image, leaving the livid face hanging in tatters. A shrill, unearthly wail faded into silence. The beast slumped to the floor, finally stunned.

Lupin was ill for days after his transformation, delirious with fever and ravaged by screaming nightmares. His forgetting to take the Wolfsbane potion, to which he had become accustomed, had caused severe withdrawal, and he was at times overcome with paranoia, convinced that he had attacked Arthur instead of slashing the portrait. He spent long hours alone in his room, speaking to no one. Jade missed his company, and hoped that his kind-hearted, but weary spirit was not snuffed out.

12 Grimmauld Place seemed eerily quiet in the absence of Mrs Black's yells...it took Jade a while to get used to no longer anticipating them. Ron and Harry had draped the old, moth-eaten curtains over the row of house-elf heads, as Hermione couldn't stand to see Kreacher's severed head leering at her, almost triumphantly, from its place on the wall.

As the moon waned, Lupin slowly recovered. The heat of late August gave way to overcast skies and storm clouds. Raindrops pattered and streaked down the kitchen windows. Jade was waiting to say goodbye to Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny before they departed for Kings Cross when Remus wandered into the kitchen. His expression was wearier than ever, his eyes still ravaged by the beast that had overcome him once more. He gave Jade a kind smile, before going to open the door to Kingsley and Tonks, who were to escort the group to the station. Her heart ached to see him so broken, so lonely. The child moved within her, shifting positions, and Jade smiled wistfully down at her stomach.

'_Locomotor trunk'_ muttered Harry, following his trunk as it drifted down the stairs. The last of the summer holidays had drifted by in a blur of textbooks, packing, Order meetings, blue paint and anxiety. He had noticed with relief but little enthusiasm that he had achieved sufficient OWLS to study Defence Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Charms and Potions at NEWT level, in case he proceeded to train to be an Auror...Harry found he had little inclination to think about the future. The prophecy...to be killer or killed...and the endless days upon empty days with no Sirius living in them. He sighed as he set his trunk down at the foot of the stairs. No one else seemed to be ready. Dragging his feet, he mooched into the kitchen, flopping into the armchair beside Jade's.

She smiled wryly, as if she understood how he felt. 'Back to school...'

Harry nodded. 'Yeah...it's going to be kind of...strange.'

'I know,' Jade said sympathetically, wishing for something to bring a vestige of happiness back into his life. 'Ouch,' she added, grimacing. 'Stop that!'

'Are you okay?' Harry asked.

'Fine,' she smiled. 'Thanks....James is fidgety today.'

'Um...' Harry hesitated, 'does it...could I...?'

'Of course.' Jade smiled again. 'Right here...' she took Harry's hand in hers, and placed it on the swell of her belly, where he could feel the tiny pulse of life within. His godson. A new life...a flutter of hope.

Voices and trunks clattered overhead. Jade pulled Harry into a tight hug. 'Look after yourself, Harry...see you soon.'

'Take care, Jade,' Harry said gruffly, but he smiled. Jade's gaze and her wishes followed him out of the door into the rain.


	9. Samhain Night

**9. Samhain Night**

The bubbling of laughter and the scent of roasting pumpkins faded into silence and the damp scent of leaves as Harry climbed the mountain path. He walked alone, his heart as heavy as the rock he carried in both hands, and the metallic grey sky pressing down above him. On entering the shrouded clearing, he laid his rock on the cairn, and sat down on a mossy fallen tree, trying to think.

For the first time in two months he was alone. At times, those two months had seemed to speed by in a fast-forwarded sequence of lessons, Quidditch and homework. At other times, when his brain latched onto the image of Sirius's stormy eyes looking into his, those grey eyes reflecting surprise as he free-fell towards eternity...each second felt like a life sentence.

As the stillness of the shrine penetrated the confusion of Harry's exhausted mind, memories played through his head, as tangible as if he was watching the images of his own thoughts from within a pensieve. A jet black dog with gleaming pale eyes emerging from the darkness of a Muggle street...a wasted madman in the dusty Shrieking Shack, his sunken eyes blazing with intensity as he roared, '_then you should have died...died rather than betray your friends_'...the smile that illuminated Sirius Black's gaunt face at the thought of sharing a home with his godson...grey eyes meeting his, before embracing the open sky, _'you are – truly your father's son'_...Sirius's head regarding him from the fireplace, his haunted eyes full of concern...a muddy paw print on a folded piece of parchment...a strong hand gripping his shoulder as he spoke of what happened in the graveyard...Sirius sweeping his long dark hair from his eyes, bitterly cursing the spiteful image of his mother...laughing and singing, _'God rest ye merry Hippogriffs'_...and that barking laugh again, taunting death before he fell...

The force of his memory was so strong, Harry felt as though he lived the moments he had spent with Sirius again...and they seemed to pass in no time at all, in a fraction of the years that stretched out endlessly behind and before him. Consumed for those fleeting instants by the past, Harry felt Sirius's presence so strongly that as his vision of his godfather faded into oblivion, he was stabbed by an intense shock of loss. Overwhelmed by hopelessness too suffocating for tears, he sat staring at the ground for a long time.

Soft footsteps disturbed the stillness. 'Harry...I just wanted to make sure you're okay...' Ginny shifted her feet hesitantly at the entrance to the clearing, twisting a strand of flaming hair. 'I'll go, if you want to be alone...we were just...worried about you.' Her brown eyes were shaded with concern.

Harry opened his mouth to say yes, he would rather be left alone. His mind played another memory. _'Excuse me, but I care what happens to Sirius as much as you do!'_ ...Ginny staring entranced at the fluttering veil...lying as if dead on the cold floor of the chamber of secrets. _Ginny loved Sirius too...she knew death too..._

He shrugged. 'I don't mind...stay if you want to.'

Ginny hesitated a moment longer, biting a fingernail. The breeze lifted her red hair from her shoulders, and she shivered slightly in the chill. The autumn leaves rustled softly under her feet as she crossed the clearing. She sat down beside Harry on the mossy log. Her hair curtained her face; it smelled like apples. Uncertainly, Ginny embraced Harry in a one-armed hug. 'I'm sorry this has to be so hard for you,' she said simply, in a soft voice.

Harry gave a half-smile in return. He was getting used to people trying to cheer him up, not accepting his misery for what it was. Ginny rested her head against his shoulder. Her empathy was tangible as she shared in his grief. Harry felt the iron clamp of pain around his heart released slightly. They sat like that for a long while, silent apart from the swaying of the wind through the trees, the whisper of falling autumn leaves.

It occurred to Harry that to be sitting like this with Cho or any other girl would seem strange, but somehow it felt completely natural and comforting. _She's a good friend_, he reflected, remembering Ginny's determination to save Sirius, the risk she had taken to help him break into Umbridge's office, the way she had stood up for Jade in front of Snape...However angry Harry got with Ron and Hermione, he had to admit he was lucky to have friends like them. And Ginny...she had always seemed much younger, and her childish infatuation had made Harry feel awkward in her company...but that was long ago...she was loyal and kind enough to give up her afternoon in Hogsmeade, where everyone was enjoying the Halloween festivities, to sit here with him. He had wanted to be alone...but it was nice not to be.

A distant call echoed through the steel grey sky. Harry and Ginny looked up to see an eagle overhead, soaring as a spirit set free. Harry thought of Sirius...incarcerated for twelve years...how he must have longed just to see the sky. The gunmetal sky above him reflected the moonlight in Sirius's eyes as he took off on that midnight flight to freedom. Harry could almost hear Sirius's gleeful laughter as Buckbeak flew off into the darkness; could almost see his eyes in the sky.

'It's weird...' Harry said slowly. 'He doesn't seem so...far away...right now.'

'Samhain night,' Ginny replied softly. 'The veil between us and the otherworld is hardly there. People believe it's possible to communicate with the dead. I've heard that the Unspeakables go into the amphitheatre, and people speak to them from behind the veil.'

Harry shivered slightly. Encouraged as he felt by the sense of Sirius's presence at the cairn that afternoon, hearing voices from behind a veil seemed...spooky. He couldn't help imagining Sirius laughing at the idea.

'I believe he'll always be with you...in his own way,' Ginny said, as if reading his thoughts.

A sudden gust of wind shook several tawny leaves from the trees, and heavy raindrops splashed down, filling the air with a fresh, earthy scent. Thunder drum-rolled in the distance.

'We'd better get back,' Ginny suggested. Harry nodded, and she set off at a run down the mountain path. Harry followed, his feet skidding on the slippery leaves.

They caught up with Ron and Hermione on the road back to Hogwarts. Hermione gave Ginny a questioning look, which she appeared not to notice, brushing tendrils of dripping red hair off her face as they slowed to a walk, too wet to run from the rain any more.

Harry dreamed about Sirius that night. He was talking to his godfather in the fireplace. The dream was so vivid he could feel the hard stone floor beneath his legs, the heat of the flickering tongues of flame on his face. He had gone to the fireplace to ask Sirius about the prophecy... _'born to those who have thrice defied him'_...Sirius's face was alight with triumph as he regaled Harry with tales of how he had fought beside James and Lily, how he had defended his best friends against the forces of evil...three times. He grinned proudly at the memory of their bravery, their bold defiance. Sirius smiled wistfully as he spoke of James and Lily's love for their son. He chuckled as he recalled the happy moments they had shared; the instances where they had taken refuge from despair in laughter. Sirius's steel eyes blazed with anger as he spoke of their friend's betrayal, and sparked with determination as he swore that one day, vengeance would be executed. And those eyes melted with love as he spoke of meeting his godson after all those lost years. And Harry knew that within him, he held the strength to defy the Dark Lord once more. Strength that came not only from himself, but from the ones he had loved, whose power lived on in his heart.

Miles away in London, Jade woke as the child stirred and shifted within her. Tangled in the remnants of her dream – a dream of a fearless grey-eyed child – she felt Sirius's comforting warmth beside her, his breath soft and hot on her cheek. She tasted red wine on his lips in a sleepy kiss, and felt his strong hand resting protectively over her belly.

And Remus Lupin smiled as he slept. In his dream he was running, his paws drumming on the mossy forest floor, the scent of pine needles, earth and rain in his nostrils. He breathed the scent of freedom, heard the moon calling him onwards. His veins throbbed with power as he ran, his beast unchained and unafraid, Padfoot and Prongs beside him.


	10. Stormyeyed Angel

**10. Stormy-eyed Angel**

Jade blinked confusedly as she raised her head from the jumble of papers on her desk, reflecting shafts of pale late afternoon sunshine. She must have fallen asleep again. She had been making notes on a paper on house-elf enchantments that she had promised to send Hermione. Some of the charms described were extremely advanced, even for Hermione, and required some explanation. Jade's mind refused to focus and she kept drifting towards sleep. She stared determinedly at the pages in front of her before her focus slipped again, and she closed her weary eyes just for a moment...A dull cramp pressing against the base of her spine woke her from her doze a few minutes later. Jade panicked for an instant..._surely not yet? There were days to go still..._She sighed. Giving up on the idea of work, she manoeuvred herself heavily from behind the desk, and lay down on her bed. Now that she had decided to sleep, her mind remained obstinately awake. Her back ached dully, and she needed to use the bathroom for what felt like the thousandth time that day. Reluctantly, she pushed herself into a sitting position, swung her legs clumsily over the side of the bed, and heaved herself to her feet.

As she moved slowly towards the door, Jade felt a strange rushing sensation between her legs. Moving as fast as she could, she snatched up her wand to vanish the water that had pooled on the slate floor, before she fully registered..._Oh God, it's time..._Praying that Molly had arrived while she was sleeping, Jade made her way gingerly downstairs. To her dismay, the kitchen was empty except for Dumbledore, who was frowning over some documents at the table. He looked up at the sound of Jade's footsteps, his blue eyes peering at her over his half-moon spectacles, observing her pale, anxious face.

'Is everything all right?' he asked in a concerned tone.

Jade noticed Dumbledore's barn owl perched on the window ledge. 'Professor...could I use your owl...? Molly said to let her know as soon as...um...my waters broke.' Jade blushed. Despite the fact that she was about to give birth, with no women presently in the house to help her, it still seemed bizarre to discuss such matters with the Headmaster of Hogwarts.

Dumbledore sprang into action faster than Jade ever remembered seeing him move. He scribbled notes on three separate pieces of parchment, before knocking over his ink pot, the contents of which streamed blackly all over the table. The owl flapped its wings in alarm as Dumbledore seized it abruptly from the window ledge, tied the parchments hastily to its leg and flung it unceremoniously from the window. The headmaster reminded Jade not so much of a wise old owl as a chickless mother hen. While they waited for Mrs Weasley, and the midwife from St Mungo's, Dumbledore fussed agitatedly about her, making a cup of tea which he snatched from her lips at the last minute, lest she was supposed to be fasting. He had her sit down on an armchair, then decided it would be better for her to be lying down, and insisted on helping her up the stairs, frail as he seemed. When Jade winced at her early contractions, he seemed more terrified than she did.

Jade was relieved when Molly and the midwife arrived, and assumed control. Remus arrived shortly after them, bringing Harry and Ginny, who was to assist her mother at the birth, from Hogwarts by portkey. Lupin kissed Jade on the forehead and squeezed her hand encouragingly, while Harry hovered uncertainly at her bedside, before both of them were evicted by Mrs Weasley. Jade was torn – part of her wanted Harry to be present at his godson's birth, but she understood Mrs Weasley's reservations, and she felt too apprehensive to argue.

Harry and Remus's anxious voices, punctuated by Harry's less-than-nonchalant coughing, drifted from the courtyard below Jade's window, with wisps of smoke on the cold night air. Much to Molly's distracted disapproval, Remus permitted Harry a few drags on his cigarette as a gesture of masculine solidarity amidst this most sacred of feminine rituals. Jade bit back a sob as she thought of how Sirius would have laughed.

Little James seemed fervently eager to make his arrival in the world. Jade was dazedly surprised at how rapidly her contractions grew closer together and more painful. Through a salty haze of sweat and tears of pain, Jade saw Ginny rushing about importantly on her mother's instruction, bringing fresh towels, warm water, ice...She heard Ginny's hurried voice in the courtyard, as she dashed out between errands to update Harry and Remus on the baby's progress. Molly remained at Jade's side throughout the night, soothing, encouraging, and focussing her on the rhythm of her breathing. Slow, calming breaths between contractions, and controlled panting in time with the height of the pain. When Jade squeezed her eyes shut, instinctively pushing down on the centre of the pain dragging at her insides, she imagined it was Sirius's hand she crushed in her own.

The light of the waxing moon streaming through the window and the flickering candles illuminated the lines of pain etched into Jade's face. 'Good girl,' the midwife praised encouragingly as Jade panted and strained through the everlasting night. At around midnight, Harry and Remus withdrew from the cold outside, and their pacing footsteps could be heard on the landing. Through the confusion of blinding pain, Jade felt fear encroaching. She could sense the force, the hunger for life drawing her child out into the world, and yet it seemed he would be trapped inside her forever...And the hours wore on.

As the first rays of dawn filtered into the room, Jade knew her energy was spent. Despite the presence of the three women in the room, holding and supporting her, she felt entirely alone. She sensed the shadow of death hovering in the darkness beyond the dawn and the candlelight, and she could not summon the strength to draw another deep breath, to push one more time. Jade closed her eyes...

Sirius was watching over her, his grey eyes smouldering with love and fear, _'promise me...'_ Jade clenched her teeth. She felt pain intensifying within her and she bore down with a new strength. The spectre of death withdrew, defeated.

'Clever girl,' praised the midwife, massaging Jade's abdomen. 'He's almost here'. A shock of agony ripped through Jade and she screamed as she bore down once more, gasping for breath. 'Still now,' the midwife instructed. 'Wait for the next contraction...then another push.'

'Deep breaths,' Molly coached while Ginny bathed Jade's forehead with cool water. Jade cried out again as furious spasms tore her body and she pushed with all the strength within her, feeling the child released at last. The midwife gently lifted the infant, and washed him tenderly with a soft cloth.

Sobbing, Jade fell back on her pillows, ravaged but exultant. Ginny looked on in awed wonder as the baby was laid on Jade's chest.

Nothing could have prepared Jade for the miracle of seeing her child for the first time. He was red and splotchy and slightly squashed-looking ...and the most beautiful, perfect angel she had ever seen. The hours of pain she had endured were nothing in comparison to those delicate fingers and tiny toes, to the sensation of that downy dark head resting in the crook of her arm. The warm, trusting weight on her breast. James opened his mouth and howled, and Jade laughed with relief, consumed by love more powerful than any she had ever known. For a moment, mother and child were the only two people in the world, as she gazed at him, enraptured. And the eyes that blinked back at her were stormy grey.

_Thanks to Sirius Star and Madam Pince of Immeritus for inspiring this chapter._


	11. November Rain

**11. November Rain**

Harry held his breath as Mrs Weasley placed the white woollen bundle in his arms. He was holding Sirius's child for the first time. His godson. Harry had never seen anything so small and vulnerable, and so infinitely amazing, in his life. James's tiny hands were bunched into determined fists, and his dark downy hair fuzzed in all directions. He regarded Harry solemnly with enormous smoky eyes. Harry's throat constricted and he blinked back tears. James whimpered and Harry jostled the wriggling, powder-scented infant awkwardly in his arms, petrified that he might drop him. He beamed proudly as baby James settled quietly against his chest, contentment resting on his dimpled cheeks. Jade watched with a little smile dancing over her pale, exhausted face.

In the early hours of that morning, Harry eventually drifted off to sleep to the pattering of soft November rain against his window...He was in a garden, outside a cottage with a blue door. It was a clear azure autumn day. Leaves fluttered down from an oak tree, falling in golden drifts over the lawn. He smelled coffee brewing, and heard a chuckle of barking laughter. 'Put him down!' a woman's voice insisted, mock-severely.

'But he likes it...' protested Sirius, spinning a black-haired bundle in the air, then clasping it against his chest, tickling its little tummy. 'Don't you, Harry?' Baby Harry scrunched his eyes and chortled in response. 'See?' Sirius insisted, grinning mischievously.

Lily tossed her red hair, her eyes sparkling with giggles. 'But if you drop him...' she brandished her wand menacingly.

A shadow crossed Sirius's metallic eyes suddenly. 'You know I'd die before I let anyone hurt him, don't you?'

Lily regarded him just as seriously. 'I know. Me too.'

It was still raining when Harry woke up, the dream vivid in his mind – the smell of coffee, the flutter of falling leaves, the steel determination in Sirius's voice. Pulling on jeans and a sweater, he went in search of Jade, to make sure she knew he, too, would do anything to protect James – his godson.

Harry hesitated at the nursery door, which was slightly ajar. Pearly rainy-morning light gleamed off the baby blue walls. Maybe Jade was sleeping. He pushed the door softly, and was surprised to see Ginny beside the cradle, rain streaking the window behind her. Unaware of his presence, she was absorbed in watching the sleeping baby, a serene smile on her lips. The tender expression in her eyes was not that of a little girl, but a woman. Her burnished copper hair was swept around the nape of her neck, and tumbled tousled over her shoulder.

Awkwardly, Harry cleared his throat, stuffing his hands in his pockets. 'Hey...'

'Harry,' she smiled. 'James is finally asleep. Jade just went to have a bath. See how sweet he looks with his eyes all scrunched up.'

Harry sat down opposite her on the edge of the bed, regarding his slumbering godson. James's hands were bunched into sleepy fists, and the blanket cocooning him shifted delicately to the rhythm of his breathing. 'He's so...little,' Harry said eventually, unable to think of another word.

'I know,' Ginny said softly, still gazing transfixed at the sleeping child. 'So...fragile,' she added, more seriously.

Harry nodded. 'I couldn't stand it if anything...happened to him,' he said fiercely, thinking of the pleading echoes of his mother's voice he had heard when the Dementors came too close.

'Me neither,' whispered Ginny, looking up and meeting Harry's glance intensely. Tears glinted in her brown eyes, reflecting her own memory of a journey to hell and back. 'I think I'd want to kill anyone who tried to hurt him.'

'Me too,' said Harry gruffly. He suddenly felt very conscious of those profound dark eyes locked in his. A single tear beaded Ginny's auburn eyelashes. Before he thought about it, Harry reached across to gently brush it away with his finger tip. He caught his breath as his touch glanced across her skin, and he saw her eyes widen in surprise. Confused, he broke eye contact, dropping his hand to his side and muttering something inane about wishing they didn't have to return to school that afternoon.

Ginny nodded fervently. 'Ugh, I hate Mondays. Double potions first thing in the morning.'

'Ugh,' agreed Harry. 'At least it's Quidditch tomorrow night though.'

'Yeah,' Ginny's expression brightened. 'That'll be good.'

'If only we could find decent Beaters,' Harry lamented. 'You make a good Chaser, though.'

'Really?' Ginny reddened slightly. 'Thanks.'

'Yeah, really,' said Harry. 'That last goal in the Ravenclaw match. Brilliant.'

Ginny smiled, looking thoughtful. Harry cast about for something else to say.

'Is he still asleep?' asked Jade, wandering into the room in her nightdress looking drained. She was followed by Mrs Weasley, bearing a tottering pile of nappies.

Ginny nodded. 'He's been asleep the whole time.

'Good,' said Molly. 'Jade, sweetheart, you should try and rest while he's sleeping.' Jade looked relieved about this. Harry stood up and moved towards the door as she climbed wearily into bed.

'Uh oh,' said Ginny, observing James a moment before he opened both his eyes and his mouth and commenced yelling.

Jade looked as though she might burst into tears herself. 'Does he need feeding, do you think?' she asked Molly uncertainly.

Mrs Weasley shook her head. 'No, he had a feed just before he went down. Perhaps it's time for his bath. Get some sleep, we'll take care of it,' she added kindly. 'Harry, could you carry that tub downstairs for me?' She gestured towards a porcelain basin standing on top of the dressing table. 'I brought that from The Burrow for little James. I used to bathe you in it.' She regarded Ginny fondly.

Ginny grimaced, and scooped James from his mother's arms before following Harry down the stairs.

Harry almost bumped into Lupin, who was hurrying up the stairs, two at a time. 'Molly!' he exclaimed. 'Arthur just called. He needs you to go to The Burrow immediately and collect some documents on the new penalties for infringement of the Muggle Protection Act. There's been an incident with an enchanted ice cream truck...'

'Oh bother! I was just going to give James his bath. I don't think Ginny...' Mrs Weasley said doubtfully, as Ginny fumed, tossing her red hair and glaring at her mother, as if to say, 'what can't I do this time?'

'I can supervise his bath,' Remus offered.

Molly regarded him apprehensively.

'I have bathed a baby before, 'Remus pointed out, chuckling. 'In fact, I believe I gave Harry here his first bath.'

It was Harry's turn to grimace, while Ginny laughed at him.

'Very well,' Mrs Weasley conceded reluctantly. 'Just don't make the water too hot, and don't let him get cold...I won't be long.' She scurried off towards the fireplace, while Remus took the basin from Harry, filled it with warm water, and set it at the corner of the kitchen table. Knowing that Ginny had been dismayed by her mother's lack of confidence in her childcare skills, Lupin let her take charge, while keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings.

James started crying with dismay as soon his warm clothes were removed. 'Here, you hold him, and make sure you support his neck,' Ginny instructed Harry as she lowered the squirming baby into the tepid water. James seemed to be soothed by the warm water. His tears ceased and he splashed floppily with his tiny arms.

Harry's task was more difficult than he anticipated. The baby was so very wriggly and slippery. His hands always seemed to be in the way of Ginny's soapy cloth, yet he was terrified of letting James go in case he slipped under the water. He was very conscious of Ginny's arm against his as she stood beside him, her apple-scented hair fluttering against his cheek, their soapy hands touching. She seemed oblivious to his proximity, biting her lip lightly in concentration, completely absorbed in what she was doing.

The bathing completed, Ginny took James from Harry's hands, and lifted him out of the water, holding him against her chest while she waited for Remus to pass her a towel. Harry watched, spellbound by her innate competence as she gently dried the baby; applied nappy cream and lotion and baby powder. Remus showed her how to fold and fasten the nappy. James did not take kindly to this, and wailed miserably. Ginny cradled and soothed him to no avail.

'He'll be wanting his mother,' Remus explained consolingly.

Ginny nodded. 'I'll take him upstairs...and change,' she added, ruefully surveying her damp, clinging sweater.

Harry stared at the floor for a moment, then looked back at Remus. Sorrow lurked behind the smile in his blue eyes. 'If only Sirius could have seen him,' he said softly, almost to himself.

Harry nodded sadly. The pain etched into Remus's tired face reminded him once again that he was not the only one to lose his best friend. 'I'm glad he knew, though...Did Sirius tell you,' Harry asked hesitantly, 'about him and Jade...and the baby?'

Remus shook his head slowly. 'I guessed they were together...but he never told me. I'm sorry he didn't,' he admitted, 'but I knew it was hard for him to talk to me. Sirius hated that I was working for the Order while he was locked up here. At least Jade was in the same position as him, in a way. And I'm glad he found some happiness.'

Harry nodded sadly. Brief, bittersweet happiness.

'And Sirius's love life and me don't exactly have a history of going well together,' Lupin added ruefully.

Harry's eyebrows peaked in surprise. He had no idea what Lupin meant.

'Did Sirius never tell you about Persia?' Remus asked, uncertainly.

Harry shook his head, infinitely regretting the opportunities he had missed to learn more about his godfather.

'She was his first girlfriend at Hogwarts. A real tomboy and just as big a rebel as Sirius. They were always trying to outdo each other with pranks and escapades. She was incredibly daring, and stunning too. Sirius fell for her hard...but I don't think he ever knew whether she felt the same way about him. It seemed to be a kind of game for her...so he never admitted that he loved her. I think it was the only risk he never took...'

'Anyway – it sounds horrible, she was my best friend's girl – but I thought she was manipulative, and I was afraid she'd hurt him. I didn't trust her. When your father and Sirius realised...what I was, I begged them not to tell anybody. Sirius was true to his word, but Persia realised we had a secret. She insisted that Sirius had to tell her, and he refused. Sirius told her that if she couldn't trust him, his friends came first...and that was the end of it. He never said anything, but I knew it broke his heart, and I felt terrible about it. So...' Remus trailed off, shrugging.

He lit a cigarette, and exhaled slowly, watching the smoke drift towards the ceiling, lost in thought.

Harry was visualising the scene in his mind, Sirius impatiently sweeping his dark hair from his eyes, glaring at a girl who reminded Harry of Cho, only she wasn't crying. Harry took the drag Lupin offered him, liking the sense of companionship it gave him. 'Maybe it was better though,' Harry reflected. 'If she didn't really love him, then she would have just hurt him more if they stayed together.'

'That's true,' Remus nodded. 'But...' he regarded Harry intently as he took the cigarette from him, 'if you do truly care about someone, you should tell them how you feel. Better to risk your pride than risk losing them forever.'

Harry had the distinct impression they were no longer discussing Sirius and Persia. He watched the rain falling against the window. 'I know,' he said eventually.

_--The title November Rain is borrowed from Guns 'n Roses again_

_--The blue door is courtesy of BlackDogstar, Immeritus, in 'Home'_


	12. The Star of Isis

**12. The Star of Isis**

Jade had never attended a wizard infant's naming ceremony. According to tradition, this was to be conducted on the seventh night after the birth, and served to invoke benediction and protection over the new baby, and to name the child's guardians. It would take place at the gothic chapel on the edge of Hogsmeade village. Jade had also never considered the complications involved in magically transporting a baby. She could not risk taking a Muggle bus or train. Apparition, portkeys and floo powder were all too dangerous, and even contemplating travelling on the Knight Bus seemed an invitation to disaster. Through connections at the Ministry, Kingsley had arranged to borrow a car.

He and Arthur bickered companionably over maps and gear changing protocol. 'Change up! Or is it down?' Arthur instructed, while Kingsley flicked his wand vaguely in the direction of the pedals. In the back of the car, Jade stared out of the window while Remus slept. Full moon had just passed, and he looked harrowed and deathly tired. James, strapped into a car seat Molly had unearthed at the Burrow, slept contentedly as the journey to Scotland slipped by with enchanted speed.

Mesmerised by the rain-swept countryside gliding past the window, Jade remembered her own journeys to Hogwarts, and thought of Sirius making the same journey, returning to Hogwarts with his friends and leaving that oppressive house behind him. Jade glanced at Remus, who had awoken, and was staring at the passing scenery, a far away expression in his eyes, as if he recalled a time of innocence..._for the first time I had friends_...unravaged by betrayal and loss. Pain stabbed Jade straight in the heart as she heard Sirius – the voice inside her head – saying, _'Moony never told us how painful it was for him...his scars only gave us the faintest idea...'_

Nobody knew how hard it was for him to lose Sirius, and he always stood back in deference to Harry's grief and her own. Yet, Sirius had been in Harry's life for two years, and only those few short months in hers...Remus had lost his last lifelong friend. Harry had his friends, she had James, and Remus had – no one. She remembered the blended anguish and rage in his amber eyes as he raised the axe over Kreacher... Those eyes were still open, blue again, slightly bloodshot and burning in his drawn face as he gazed through the window. Jade opened her mouth to say something – to say sorry for being so blind, but there were no words. Nothing that could erase scars that deep.

James blinked his grey eyes and whimpered. Jade lifted him from his car seat, and arranged a blanket modestly over her shoulder whilst she nursed him. Remus's eyes were closed again – whether he slept or not Jade couldn't tell. He seemed so alone, withdrawn into impenetrable isolation. Slowly, inevitably, pain faded from Jade's mind as she cradled James, complete in the primal communion between mother and child.

Night was falling as they drove into Hogsmeade. The rain had cleared and stars glittered in the dusky sky. The headlights illuminated an ancient stone chapel surrounded by bare winter trees. Jade shivered as she stepped out of the car into the cold night. A chill wind fluttered at her robes, and whispered in the bare branches of the trees. Remus held the door while she lifted James from his car seat, and held him against her shoulder as she followed a rough pathway of stone slabs up to the heavy wooden doors of the chapel. The interior of the chapel was dimly lit by flickering candles and burning herbs smouldering on a stone altar at the front of the chapel. Jade, holding baby James, and Harry, stood beside Morgan, the mystical warlock who had conducted wizards' naming and wedding ceremonies as long as anyone could remember. James was swathed in a robe of deep blood red, to symbolise new life.

Jade surveyed the congregation as they assembled... Professor Dumbledore swept through the door, dressed in robes of midnight blue adorned with tiny silver stars. He took his place next to Professor McGonagall, whose expression was serious though a smile flickered in her eyes. Hagrid sat beside her in his best hairy brown suit. Alastor Moody scanned the room vigilantly from his place beside Kingsley, whose bald head gleamed ebony in the candlelight. Tonks's hair was shoulder length and sky blue that evening. She sat with Remus, regarding him with concern. His face looked tired and worn in the glinting candlelight.

Ron and Hermione sat together, their devotion to their friend plain in their solemn expressions. Ginny's intent face was curtained by burnished copper hair. Next to her was a round-faced boy who had to be Frank and Alice's son Neville and a girl with long blonde hair. Fred and George, resplendent in black dragon hide jackets, looked uncharacteristically serious. Molly and Arthur sat side by side, beaming fondly. Bill caught her eye and smiled. Jade was almost overwhelmed by the knowledge that they were all here to share in the benediction of her child, Sirius's legacy.

Smoke drifting from the burning herbs and the poignancy of the words brought stinging tears to Jade's eyes as Morgan pronounced the mystic benediction. _'Benedictum nomen James Sirius Magellan Black. Custon Jade Magellan et Harry Potter polliceri defende et custodi et guberna..._ Blessed be the name James Sirius Magellan Black. Custodians Jade Magellan and Harry Potter promise to defend, guard and guide...'

Morgan smiled suddenly, and light pierced his unfathomable eyes. 'Harry Potter...I remember your parents standing here on their wedding day, so young and so certain of their love for each other. I had never witnessed greater happiness...not until they stood before me again on your naming day. And their friend Sirius Black was beside them, sharing in the joy of their marriage, and their devotion to their son. He would have given his life for James and Lily, and for you, without an instant of regret.'

Jade bowed her head as her tears bled onto James's red robes. James stirred fretfully, a look of baby sadness on his petal face, as though he knew a part of both of them was missing. Jade saw Harry's jaw clenched as he struggled to hold back the emotion that threatened to overcome him. Sirius's voice was clear in her mind. _They made me his godfather thinking they could trust me more than anyone in the world..._

'James Sirius is named for two men of courage and integrity,' said Morgan slowly, with a contemplative smile, as though he visualised Harry's father and his godfather standing in front of him. 'Two true friends...and for a legend of resurrection and hope...' The warlock paused, visionary firelight flickering in his eyes...

'According to legend, Osiris, the ruler of ancient Egypt, was slain by his brother, Set, the prince of darkness. The goddess Isis, who loved Osiris deeply, bore his child after his death. Isis is symbolised in the heavenly realm by the Sirius Star, whose advance marks the Inundation of the Nile, the flooding of that great river over the dry desert plains, which betokens fertility and growth, the bringing forth of grains from the barren desert lands. In November each year, the ancient Egyptians enacted a ritual lamenting the death of Osiris, culminating in the creation of images of Osiris with grains of corn planted inside them, their growth symbolising resurrection, and new life rising from death.'

The chapel was so still Jade could almost hear the hissing flames, and melted wax dripping from the candles. After a long, profound silence, Dumbledore swept to the front of the chapel, to invoke the final benediction, a powerful charm of protection. He regarded the slumbering child in Jade's arms for a moment, his expression meditative. When he spoke his voice was low and quiet. 'There is an ancient magic so deep we cannot fully comprehend its ways, but we know it holds power over death and mortality. Sirius is with us every day as he lives through his child, and through his devotion to the ones he loved.' Dumbledore's crystal eyes rested in turn on James, Jade, Harry, and finally smiled as his gaze met Lupin's.

'_Emittee spiritum Sirius Black ut digni efficamur promissionibus familia et amora et vitam aeternam_...Send forth the spirit of Sirius Black, that we may be made worthy of the promises of love and family and life everlasting...' As Dumbledore raised his wand and pronounced the incantation, James's sleeping face was infused with a soft, golden light, and a pure note of Phoenix song echoed through the chapel. Jade's heart was filled with love and courage, and the conviction that she would live and die for the angel she held in her arms.

As she stepped out into the darkness, the weight of her baby tender and sweet in her arms, Jade looked above to see the Star of Isis bright in the black velvet sky, and for an instant it didn't seem to glimmer coldly a billion miles away, but burned warm and close and tangible. A refrain echoed through her thoughts...

_Sweet child o' mine  
Sweet love of mine_

_--Thanks to Madam Pince for the benedictions, and translation._


	13. Black Sabbath

**13. Black Sabbath**

'Oh. Bloody. Hell,' cursed Ron, peeling his face from the smeary window of the Knight Bus, as they lurched towards London. 'How long 'til we get our Apparition tests?'

'I'm not sure if you two Apparating is a good idea,' said Hermione reprovingly, frowning at Harry and Ron. 'You'll just be Apparating all over the house like Fred and George, landing on top of people.'

Ron smirked as he considered the possibilities.

Harry failed to manage a smile. He didn't want to be on the Knight Bus, terrorising letter boxes and speeding towards 12 Grimmauld Place. He wished he could have gone to sleep that Sunday afternoon in his four poster bed at Hogwarts, and woken up when Christmas was over. Last Christmas, Sirius had been there...singing and drinking wine, joking and laughing. No matter how many people were there, how hard they tried to make the day festive, Harry knew he would find the house achingly empty. _'It's your godson's first Christmas,'_ he told himself severely. _'You should be happy about that.'_

'_Sure,' _said the bitter voice in his head. _'Your godson Sirius never told you about. He didn't trust you enough to tell you.'_

'_But he trusted me enough to tell Jade to make me his godfather,'_ Harry's rational voice argued back.

'_Well, that's great,'_ the bitter voice taunted him._ 'Another weapon Voldemort can use against you.'_

Harry had no comeback for that. He clenched his fists and stared out of the window, his back to Ginny and Hermione, who were seated cross legged, precariously leaning against the brass footboard of the bedstead.

Ginny's misty reflection looked back at him. Crookshanks was curled in her lap and she stroked him absently, tangling her fingers in his long fur as she stared, frowning, through the window at the passing fields and the leaden sky. Harry turned sharply at the edge of bitter tears in her voice. 'Ron, have...have you heard from Percy?'

Ron shook his head glumly. 'I don't think he's coming...'

Hermione looked up from her Arithmancy book, and patted Ginny's shoulder in sympathy, but Ginny twitched her hand away angrily. Crookshanks gave a spiteful hiss. Hermione's eyes widened in surprise as Ginny swore viciously. She and Ron exchanged glances, but said nothing. Ron shrugged, as though resigned to his brother's estrangement from the family, but Ginny's eyes blazed with fury. 'Traitor!' she spat.

'You don't know that...' Hermione tried to placate her. 'He just can't admit he was wrong.'

'I don't care!' Ginny snapped defiantly, brushing a strand of bitten hair from her mouth. 'Are we still going to make excuses for him if he sells us out to You-Know-Who, just like...' she broke off, realising from Ron's stricken expression that she had gone too far.

'...Wormtail,' finished Harry, before he could stop himself.

'My God, Harry,' Ron whispered, appalled. 'Is that what you think?' His hand gripping the bedstead was trembling slightly. Hermione reached across and held it in her own.

Harry bit his lip and glanced out of the window again. 'I don't know...sorry for saying that. It just sort of...came out.' He stared fixedly at the passing grey skyline, feeling three pairs of eyes on the back of his head. It just came out...because he knew that was what Ginny was thinking.

And that was driving him insane. Her voice, her thoughts, her eyes, that smile...refused to be obliterated from his mind, no matter how often he told himself it was insane. How could he be obsessed with someone he'd barely given a second glance in four years, just because he happened to see her looking at a baby one day? How could he have let his chance slip away without a thought? And what the hell was he supposed to do about it?

'_I have never...had feelings for someone in this room...'_ She had blushed and looked uncomfortable while he stared at his shoes like they were the Quidditch Cup.

Her head resting against his shoulder on the mountain that day, apple-scented russet hair brushing his cheek... _'I'm sorry this has to be so hard for you.'_

'_Ginny used to fancy Harry, but she gave up on him months ago.' _Hermione would know – they talk all the time.

The bitter taste of smoke and Lupin's searching eyes. _'Better to risk your pride than risk losing them forever.'_

His father took the risk. _'I will if you go out with me, Evans.'_

'_You're less like your father than I thought you were.'_ Sirius would have taken it.

'_And if he didn't take risks, maybe he'd be alive,' _the demon voice goaded._ 'Maybe he'd be singing Christmas carols again this year...Haven't you noticed what happens to people who take risks? Haven't you noticed what happens to people you love?'_

Sirius's free-falling form flashed across Harry's mind, as Ginny's reflected eyes glared at him in the window pane.

'Shut up,' Harry muttered, as if it could silence the voices ringing in his head.

'What's wrong?' Hermione asked, regarding him with concern.

'Er...I meant Pig.' Harry gestured vaguely at the tiny owl, who was zooming above their heads. 'I was trying to remember that counter-jinx we were practising...' he trailed off, unconvincingly even to himself.

'_Don't you think it's obvious? Everyone can tell from the way you look at her. You're making a fool of yourself, just like you did with Cho...' _The voice would evidently not shut up. It drummed in Harry's head like Dudley's stereo. _'And they expect you to be over Sirius now. It's not like you were his best friend, or his lover. You're all out of self pity allocation.'_

Harry wanted to scream or break something, as the cloudy fields gave way to garden cottages, and then dingy grey terraced houses, as they neared Grimmauld Place, and Ginny's angry brown mirror image eyes continued to glare at him in the window.

The Knight Bus slammed to a halt outside 11 Grimmauld Place, and Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny tumbled onto the pavement as quickly as possible, before it wheel-spinned screechily, and shot off in a cloud of exhaust and black burning rubber smoke.

The familiar bass of the next door stereo thudded through the twilight and a dog barked in the distance as the dishevelled group shivered on the pavement, concentrating on the house materialising in front of them. Ron hammered impatiently on the heavy black door. Hasty footsteps were heard, and Lupin opened the door. He looked as enthusiastic as Harry felt about Christmas, but greeted them warmly, and insisted on carrying Ginny and Hermione's bags to their room.

A fire crackled cheerfully in the kitchen grate, and Mrs Weasley balanced on a chair, hanging gold streamers and sprigs of holly above the window. A sweet, spicy fragrance of Christmas pudding mingled with the scent of wood smoke. Clumps of Fred and George's Mischief Managing Mistletoe were liberally scattered about the room. But none of these festive colours could detract from the lonely hand-knitted-jumper-shaped parcel lying on the scrubbed wooden tabletop. 'Return to sender.' Mrs Weasley wiped her eyes while her back was still turned, before climbing down from her chair to embrace each of them.

'How was your trip? Was the Knight Bus awful? Are you cold, Ginny? Harry, dear, you look tired. And Ron, your robes are too short again...Hermione, will you run upstairs and tell Jade I'm making tea? Poor dear, that child kept her up all night!'

Jade looked almost as though she was sleepwalking when she followed Hermione into the kitchen a few minutes later. James, by contrast, was wide awake, and Ginny brightened visibly when Jade let her take him from her. She curled into an armchair with him cradled in her arms, murmuring soothing baby nonsense, and kissed him softly on his forehead.

'_Staring at her is a good way to make sure no one notices anything.' _Harry snapped to his feet and paced distractedly around the kitchen, almost tripping over Crookshanks, who was determined to wrap himself around Harry's legs.

Jade flopped into another chair, her mug of tea clasped in both hands. 'The decorations are pretty,' she said, smiling wanly.

Mrs Weasley frowned worriedly from Jade to Harry. 'I know it's not the happiest Christmas for any of you, but...well, I wanted to, for James...'

'I know, Molly. It's his first Christmas...' Jade's gaze rested on her child cradled in Ginny's arms, watched over by those intent brown eyes.

Harry was very conscious of Mrs Weasley and Hermione observing him with worried expressions. He stamped off towards the fireplace, acting as if he was cold in order to turn his back on everyone in the room. He hated the way people kept looking at him as if he might break. And he hated that they seemed afraid to mention Sirius's name in front of him. _'You did happen to notice he's dead,'_ that spiteful voice reminded him. And he hated them saying his name anyway. _And _he hated the way Jade never got angry; she just seemed sad and tired all the time. _'She doesn't need to be angry...she has his baby now...and she was with him all that time you didn't even speak to him...'_ Bitter words of mockery.

He stared into the flames, watching them devour the crumbling logs into red hot ash, like the destructive anger that burned him on the inside.

'Where's Professor Lupin?' he heard Hermione ask conversationally. 'He didn't come back downstairs...'

Harry turned automatically, as if to look for him.

'He's not himself,' Mrs Weasley replied, shaking her head sadly. 'He seems terribly withdrawn...smokes alone in his room for hours...'

'...Doesn't talk to anyone,' Jade added wearily. She stopped abruptly, fiddling awkwardly with her mug, as Remus entered the kitchen.

The faint smokiness that lingered about him was sharper than usual, and his eyes looked not so much tired as...blank. Harry was vividly reminded of Sirius's expression when he spoke about Azkaban; that look as though shutters had closed behind his eyes, hiding a world of pain.

'Remus,' Mrs Weasley smiled with forced cheerfulness. 'Would you like some tea?'

Lupin appeared not to have heard her. His eyes raked the room and took in the abandoned parcel on the table. 'Sorry,' he said simply, crossing the room swiftly and embracing Mrs Weasley, while Ron and Ginny scowled.

'_Happy Christmas,' _satired the snide voice in Harry's mind. He wished he could shove the mental image of Sirius laughing and carolling last Christmas into the fire and burn it. Anything to stop it tormenting him like the voice that would not be muted.

A shabby duffel bag and a briefcase marked with peeling gold letters lay in the doorway. Mrs Weasley seemed to notice them too, the moment she stepped away from Lupin's hug. Her eyes filled with tears. 'You're not leaving...'

'I'm sorry, Molly, Jade...' Lupin said dully.

'You can't be alone, at Christmas...' Molly protested.

He shook his head. 'But I can't... I can't be here, not now.' His expression was unfathomable; his eyes dead.

A glimmer of understanding flickered in Jade's shadowed eyes. She got up and tucked her hand into Lupin's for a moment, and planted a sisterly kiss on his lined cheek. 'Come back soon.' She scooped James from Ginny's arms and held him up to be kissed. 'Baby will miss you...'

Lupin gave a heartbroken smile as he looked into those innocent grey eyes, then turned and walked away without another word.

Harry couldn't help feeling desperately disappointed at the same time as sympathetic. _'You just wanted to whine about your love life. Which is hopeless, if you didn't notice,'_ the sardonic voice mocked him.

'_No, I don't want him to be alone, when he's so unhappy_,' Harry argued with himself.

'_You want him here to make you feel better, to make you the guest of honour at the pity party.'_

Harry sighed. The room was awkwardly silent. Mrs Weasley was looking at him with that what-if-he-falls-apart expression again. 'I wish he would stay...we all need each other at times like this,' she lamented.

'I think he should be alone, if he needs to,' Jade mused, intently watching James's eyelids, which finally appeared to be drooping in sleep.

'I want to forget about bloody Christmas too!' the bitterness burst out of Harry's mouth. 'Why do we have to pretend everything's normal when it isn't? Sirius is DEAD, and Percy's not coming back and James has no father...' Harry fell silent, torn between the part of him that wanted to scream until his anger filled the room instead of exploding inside him, and the part of him that listened in disbelief as these poisonous words tumbled from his mouth.

'Hurting isn't going to bring him back, Harry,' Hermione said softly. 'You've got to let go...you've got to let yourself live again. Sirius would want James to have Christmas...'

'You don't know what he'd want!' Harry snarled, the voice of anger beyond control now. 'I don't think he wanted to be dead. I don't think he wanted to abandon us, and for us to pretend nothing happened. And how does Lupin get out of letting himself live, if I have to? He's not the only one that lost...' he forced himself to stop before his voice broke.

'He's the only one that lost him twice,' Ginny said. Her voice was soft, but each word crashed like thunder. For the second time, Harry looked at her as though he'd never seen her in his life. She was so right. He loved her for her compassion and he hated her furiously for being right. _Lupin lost his friend to betrayal before he lost him to death...found him only to lose him a second time, to be entirely alone..._ Ginny realised that, and she despised him for not seeing it. That was unbearable.

Harry ran, stumbling up the stairs, and slammed the bedroom door closed. The room was icy cold, and he shivered as he lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, but it didn't occur to him to pull the covers over himself. No blanket could smother misery this cold. He didn't know how long he lay there in the gathering darkness before he fell asleep...

Harry was standing on the stone dais in the middle of the shadowy amphitheatre, facing the crumbling stone archway. The black curtain fluttered, and whispering voices called to him. He stepped closer, nothingness drawing him like a magnet. The veil rippled before his eyes, and he sensed a presence just beyond it. _Sirius. Freefalling. Oblivion. Peace. _Harry stood on the edge of the abyss. Pain behind him, and redemption luring him forward. He saw fear and regret fade into the embracing darkness. Another step. The veil rippled, so close it trembled against his ragged breath. One more step...

Through the filmy blackness, Harry discerned a face. Slate grey eyes looking into his and a sad broken smile. Right there in front of him, and yet an eternity away. _Sirius,_ breathed Harry. He stretched out his hand to touch the veil and reach beyond. It was ice cold and formless.

'_You don't belong here...'_ the voice of a ghost in a dream told him.

'I belong with you, with my parents...' Harry protested. He could see them, as if in a mirror; his mother and father, Sirius...smiling at him. The siren song of oblivion consumed his mind.

'_Death doesn't own you, Harry. Your parents gave their lives for you. I couldn't live for you...dying for you was my salvation. Life belongs to you...' _ And then in a tone that was far less ghost and far more Sirius, _'now get the hell out of here'_.

Before Harry could respond, the image beyond the veil and the call of oblivion were torn from his consciousness as an insistent knock on the door obliterated the vestiges of his dream.

Blinking and rubbing his eyes, Harry remembered his furious outburst earlier...wryly he realised that Ron was probably terrified to enter his own room. 'S'okay, come in...' he mumbled, ashamed.

But the figure that stood in the doorway, wearing a green jumper over Ron's faded old pyjamas was Ginny. 'I couldn't sleep.'

Harry blinked again, trying to clear the surreal haze that enveloped him. Moments ago he had felt as though he physically stood before the veil to the otherworld, contemplating the unthinkable, and talking to Sirius's...ghost. Now Ginny was standing in front of him in her pyjamas, and the clock – which suddenly seemed to be ticking very loudly – informed him that it was half-past two in the morning.

'Er...d'you know where Ron is?' he asked, confused.

'Still having a deep and meaningful with Hermione.' Ginny attempted to suppress a smirk, and Harry grinned in spite of himself.

He shivered as he looked at her standing in the doorway. The room was freezing cold, and he couldn't think of a thing to say.

Ginny frowned, biting a strand of red hair. 'I...I'm sorry for what I said earlier. I didn't mean to hurt you. _Merlin_, I can be so insensitive.'

Harry sighed, shaking his head. He hugged his knees and stared at his feet. 'No, you were right...I never thought of it like that, but you're right.' Guilt smothered his soul like a heavy blanket.

Tentatively, Ginny crossed the room and sat down at the end of Harry's bed. Her eyes looked as though she might have been crying, but that could have been the light of the candle she carried, which glinted in her hair, and cast flickering shadows over her face. 'But I didn't mean that it's any easier for you...' she said softly.

'At least Lupin was here with him...and Jade. I could have talked to Sirius all along, and I never did. He gave me his mirror, and I forgot about it,' Harry said gruffly, hating himself, and wondering at the same time why he was telling Ginny this.

'I think Lupin feels like you do...' Ginny ventured. 'He spent twelve years hating the wrong person. He can't change that. Regret must be the most painful part...'

'Jade doesn't have that,' Harry observed wistfully.

'No regrets...' Ginny lowered the candle, so that her face was in darkness. 'Harry?'

'Er, yeah?' Harry looked at Ginny questioningly. Her expression was unfathomable in the dark.

'...Oh, nothing...never mind. I just wanted to say sorry...couldn't sleep 'cause I felt bad, but you probably want to be alone...' Her hair hid her face as she stood up, and shut the door softly behind her.

Harry rolled over and punched his cold pillow. _'Alone.'_


	14. Choosing my Confessions

**14. Choosing my Confessions**

A crystal flutter of snowflakes against the window woke Jade on Christmas morning. She flexed her arm, numbed by the weight of James's sleeping head, and grimaced as blood prickled back into her fingers. 'You are sleeping in your cot tonight, Mister,' she declared resolutely as she did every morning. James regarded her with drowsy grey eyes. She held him close, breathing in his milky baby-powder scent.

Those stormy eyes innocently blinking at her were searingly familiar. Jade remembered waking up last Christmas morning, shivering in wonder at the memory of Sirius's touch lingering on her skin and his metal eyes meeting hers in a glance of understanding. She gave her baby a wistful, lop-sided smile. It had been so unlike her to be impulsive about an intimate relationship...to be impulsive about anything, she admitted wryly to herself. And yet...the connection that drew her to Sirius was so profound that what happened that dark afternoon seemed compelled by inevitability. Not love. Not then. Two damaged, haunted souls sought each other in pursuit of mutual oblivion. But what they'd discovered in the sanctuary of their hours together...that was love. And Jade would have sold her soul for one more second.

James tugged insistently at her breast, his tiny hand patting her skin in a determined, rhythmic pulse. As warmth and sustenance ebbed between them, Jade thought how much her child resembled his father in lust for life – that restless energy that had Sirius pacing the house like a caged tiger. Misery constricted Jade's throat at the injustice of that life being obliterated as arbitrarily and finally as a candle snuffed out in the wind. A voice from long, long ago crooned, _'ask your daddy when he's coming home...' _James's gentle suckling and his soothed murmurs gradually quietened Jade's anger and dulled her pain. She wondered how it was possible to feel lonely and complete at the same time...A part of Sirius was with her always, and a part of her was missing for eternity. She sat motionless for a long time after James had completed his feed and his dark lashes drooped in slumber, holding him so that she felt his baby heartbeat against her own, staring at the snowflakes whispering against the window pane.

A hesitant tap at the door startled Jade from her musings. With a practised movement she flicked her sweatshirt – which had belonged to Sirius until she appropriated it, and was so worn that the black had faded into grey – swiftly into place. 'Come in.'

Harry shifted awkwardly from one scuffed-sneakered foot to the other. 'I...um...' He looked as though he had neither slept nor brushed his hair since the previous evening. 'I just wanted to say sorry if I've been selfish or anything...I know you miss him too...'

Jade blinked, taken aback. Ginny's remark about Remus the night before must have struck him painfully. She bit down on the tiny seed of jealous knowledge she had learned to live with; that for Sirius Harry had always come first. 'Harry, you don't have to feel sorry for anything.' She took a deep breath. 'To be honest, I thought you'd resent me...'

He shrugged slightly, conceding that the thought had crossed his mind. 'But you made him happy for a while...'

Jade's heart ached for Harry and she thought if she tried to speak she'd only cry. She knew how hard it was for him to stand there and say that. Wordlessly she smiled into his sad green eyes, and held his godson towards him. It was so much easier to hug and be comforted by a baby.

Harry sat at the foot of the bed, where he had sat and wept last summer, and took James in his arms. He held his godson awkwardly, but Jade saw some of the tension drop from his taught shoulders. James stirred, and his little fingers fixed themselves around Harry's thumb. His stormy eyes flickered open. James seemed to look at Harry, his tiny hand still clinging, and then...a dimple danced in his cheek and..._he smiled_. Unconsciously, Harry smiled back.

Jade couldn't contain the gleeful squeak that escaped her. 'He's never smiled before!'

Harry looked at her in wonder. 'Seriously? His first smile...?'

'First ever. For you,' Jade grinned with exultation in the brilliance of her child, and at the expression of bewildered pride in Harry's face. _'...Sweet child of mine...'_

'I remember the first time I saw Sirius smile,' Harry reflected, still mesmerised by those innocent smoky eyes. 'When we were coming back from the Shrieking Shack that night...and he asked me to go and live with him, before he escaped...' he fell silent, absently stroking the tiny fingers curled around his thumb.

'Sirius talked about you all the time, he was so proud of you. He couldn't stop saying how much you reminded him of your father...' Jade hugged herself for warmth, feeling the familiar soft-worn cotton against her skin. She hesitated, wondering if she could say what she needed to without it sounding like a lecture, or a trite platitude... 'You know he cared about you more than anything? He'd want you to be happy...to live your life...'

'I know,' said Harry, with rare conviction.

James regarded him solemnly, before stunning his mother and his godfather with that miraculous grin. And then he stubbornly refused to demonstrate his newly-acquired charm for the rest of the day, despite Molly's prattling, Ginny's tickling, Fred and George's exuberant spinning about the kitchen, and Arthur's dangling of Christmas ornaments and random Muggle playthings.

Jade longed for James to lighten the gloom with that smile when she found Molly weeping over a complete family photograph. And she wished he would oblige them with a diversion when Hermione returned that evening from Christmas lunch with her parents, in a foul temper. Burdened with a large cardboard box, she stamped her feet in the hallway, and shook her hair and coat so that the clinging snowflakes skittered all over the floor, before marching down to the kitchen where she dumped the box unceremoniously on the table.

'What's that?' asked Ron curiously.

'A CD player,' Hermione replied tersely.

'A what?' Ron examined the box with a puzzled expression.

'Muggles play CD's on them,' Harry explained helpfully.

Ron closed his eyes in exasperation. 'And those would be...'

'Music, Ron,' Hermione snapped in a tone of irritation.

He flinched. 'I was just asking...'

'They're _Muggle_ machines that _Muggles_ use to listen to _Muggle_ music.' Hermione sighed and turned her back on them, staring at the snowflakes drifting across the icy sky.

'Fascinating!' exclaimed Arthur, and Jade shot him a silencing glare.

'Don't you get it?' Hermione asked gloomily. 'My parents think I shouldn't be involved in the Wizarding World because of everything they're hearing about Vol- _You-Know-Who_...they're trying to turn me back into a Muggle. They bought me this thing, and went round asking all their friends what CD's Muggle teenagers listen to. They want me to get a mobile phone so they can call me at school. I tried to explain that Muggle technology doesn't work at Hogwarts, and they got all upset...They have prospectuses from Muggle universities lying all over the house, dropping hints about how I'm wasting my potential...being a witch.'

'_Satan's child...unnatural evil under our roof... possessed by demons_ _...' _Jade vividly recalled the expression of fear and abhorrence in her mother's eyes the day her letter arrived from Hogwarts... 'They'll never understand,' she said slowly and bitterly.

'Sounds like a job for you, Dad,' George joked, apparently trying to lighten the mood. 'Clearly a Misuse of Muggle Artefacts, trying to seduce Hermione with them.'

'It's not funny,' Hermione snapped, her voice choked with tears, and she dashed out into the courtyard.

Ron hesitated, glancing at Harry who gave him a brief, encouraging nod. He took a deep breath and followed Hermione outside.

Molly gave George a reproachful look. 'Perhaps we should send the Grangers a letter...explain things properly,' she suggested. Arthur nodded, and muttered something about Muggle post offices as they went in search of parchment.

Jade, Harry, Ginny, Fred and George looked at one another in awkward silence. 'I was just trying to cheer her up, honest...' George mumbled guiltily.

'It's okay,' Jade consoled. 'She needs to know she's got friends right now.'

Ginny looked at Jade and nodded. 'Yeah, she does.'

Through the window Jade could see Hermione and Ron talking earnestly in the darkening courtyard, seemingly oblivious to the snowflakes clustering their hair. Hermione wiped her eyes, and Ron gave her a tentative one-armed hug and squeezed her hand before they returned to the warmth of the kitchen, their damp clothes steaming slightly in front of the fire.

'Sorry, Hermione, I didn't mean to...' George apologised.

Hermione gave a watery smile. 'That's okay...we're stuck with it now, so maybe we should see if it's any good...'

Fred and George needed no further invitation to tear through the packaging, pausing only to marvel at the chunks of polythene and their possible uses in Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes. 'Wow, it looks like one of those alien spaceship things!' exclaimed George studying the rounded contours of the appliance.

'Doesn't it need electricity to work?' asked Jade, wondering if she was being obtuse.

'A minor technicality,' Fred declared, flicking his wand at the machine. A red light started blinking and its lid popped open.

George was examining the selection of CD's tucked into the box. 'Think of the potential...' he mused, grinning wickedly. 'Hey! Fred! Look at this!' He was laughing so hard he could barely read the title. '_Right Said Fred'._

'Gimme that!' demanded Fred, snatching the box, and scanning the list of tracks. '_Too Sexy_...we have it in writing, girls!' He winked at Hermione.

'Sorry to disillusion you,' Ginny smirked. 'But my sources tell me nobody listens to them any more.'

Fred looked crestfallen. 'Still...'

'Keep it,' Hermione said, nodding at the CD, which Fred was still examining intently. 'Have fun. I'm going to...read for a bit.' She wandered off, and once again Ron looked to Harry for reassurance, before wandering after her. Fred and George Disapparated with loud cracks, eager to barricade themselves in their room with their new acquisition. Harry sighed and followed them mundanely via the stairs, mumbling something about Buckbeak's Christmas dinner.

Jade turned her attention back to James, who was overtired and fretful. She paced the kitchen with him held against her shoulder, hoping that the rhythm would lull him to sleep.

'Maybe music would help,' suggested Ginny. She picked a random CD from the pile and inserted it into the machine. 'A girl in my dorm has one of these,' she explained in response to Jade's puzzled look.

Jade reflected that Hermione's parents must have some redeeming qualities, as she felt James relax almost instantly to the melody, and within minutes Ginny reported that his eyes were closed. She laid him gently in his crib and flopped into an arm chair.

Ginny sat in silence, curled into her chair, listening to the lyrics that filled the room with liquid emotion.

_Life is bigger  
It's bigger than you  
And you are not me  
The lengths that I will go to  
The distance in your eyes  
Oh no I've said too much  
I set it up  
_

'I hate this song,' she said suddenly, her voice harsh.

Jade regarded Ginny for a moment, realising that this reflected a plea to confide rather than to change the record. She remembered Sirius sitting in this kitchen, a long time ago, fixing her with his intense grey eyes and dark smile, saying _'tell me...'_ She held Ginny's gaze. 'Why?'

The direct question seemed to hold an inexorable compulsion. 'Everyone talks about everyone else round here,' Ginny observed dully, frowning at the floor and absently twisting her fingers together. 'So I suppose you've heard about what...happened in my first year, with the Chamber of Secrets, and the diary...?'

Jade nodded, looking intently at Ginny. Her downcast eyes were shadowed with weary grey smudges. 'Dumbledore brought it up in an Order meeting, when they thought Harry was being...possessed too. Your parents did _not_ seem impressed that he mentioned it.'

Ginny sighed. 'They think if they never talk about it they can make it so it never happened. That I'll be their innocent baby girl again. Everyone else forgot about it, even Harry...after he saved my life, and he thought You-Know-Who was possessing him too. He FORGOT!' Her voice reached a slightly manic note, as she stood up sharply and paced back and forth across the dark tiled floor.

'I wouldn't mind if people forgot what they knew about me,' Jade said ruefully. 'I hate the way they look at me as if I might suddenly fall apart or jump out of the window or start slashing my wrists if something goes wrong.'

Ginny stood still and looked at her sympathetically. 'I know...I felt so bad that everyone had to find out like that. I'll kill Snape one day,' she snapped, clenching her hands in white-knuckled fists. 'But...maybe I don't understand properly, but that's over for you now. You know you'd never do it again... This is never going to be over, because I can't stop thinking about what I could have done...those people could have died instead of being petrified, and Harry could have died, and it would have been my fault...and I dream that he's still in my head and it's all happening again...' Her voice trailed to a whisper, and she sank back into her chair, staring trancelike into the fire.

_  
That's me in the corner  
That's me in the spotlight  
Losing my religion  
Trying to keep up with you  
And I don't know if I can do it  
Oh no I've said too much  
I haven't said enough  
I thought that I heard you laughing  
I thought that I heard you sing  
I think I thought I saw you try  
_

Ginny's brown eyes reflected devouring flames as she continued, her voice leaden with hopeless regret. 'And that's why I don't think I'll ever be with Harry...because I can never stop feeling filthy and violated and...ashamed. He's Harry Potter the Boy Who Lived, and I'm the girl who almost destroyed everything. Riddle didn't just make me do things like a puppet. I knew...I realised that he was the evil inside me, possessing me...and I tried to tear him out. I threw his diary away in the bathroom.' Jade sat completely still, absorbed in the pain and fear lacing each word of Ginny's story.

Ginny paused, inclining her head so that red hair curtained her face. She took a shaky breath. 'Then I found out that Harry had somehow ended up with the diary and I panicked. I'd told Riddle every dream I ever had about Harry; that my worst fear was that he'd never notice me and I would be alone forever because I could never love anyone else. Riddle knew every intimate detail. I was out of control. I would rather have been expelled than have Harry read that...and have him find out that I'd strangled the roosters and written on the walls in blood...so I tore their dorm apart until I got my book back. And then...'

_  
Every whisper  
Of every waking hour I'm  
Choosing my confessions  
Trying to keep an eye on you  
Like a hurt lost and blinded fool  
Oh no I've said too much  
I set it up  
_

Jade recalled the way Sirius had spoken about Azkaban, each word poisonous on his tongue, as Ginny continued slowly. '...And then, I knew I needed to get rid of the diary, to tell someone that Riddle was consuming me, destroying me, that it was as if he was raping my mind and I had no power to stop him... But I couldn't, because... because I needed him. He was the closest friend I had, the only person I could talk to...only he understood me. I was alienated from everyone around me, and I clung to him because I had no one else. I felt so guilty and used, I was afraid of talking to anybody, in case they found out. The more he made me think about everything that haunted me, the more I depended on him. I had to keep the diary to protect Riddle...I loved him more than I hated him...I was obsessed with writing to him, addicted to his letters. How sick is that?' Ginny demanded in a nauseated tone.

_  
Consider this  
The hint of the century  
Consider this  
The slip that brought me  
To my knees failed  
What if all these fantasies  
Come flailing around  
Now I've said too much  
_

'I woke up lying on the floor in the Chamber of Secrets. Harry had saved my life, he was covered in blood and I couldn't stop crying. Then Dumbledore told Mum and Dad that Voldemort had enchanted me, and Harry showed them the diary...and I thought I deserved to die. I was in hell. I lay on my bed listening to this song over and over again. And I believed Harry would hate me forever because of what I did, because of the evil inside me. Riddle didn't just possess me...I let him, I gave him my soul.' Ginny's voiced faltered and she bit her lip hard, a crimson gash in her pale face.

A log in the fire crumbled into smouldering coals, and the wind lashed icy snowflakes against the window.

Jade looked at Ginny intently, taking in the sick pain written across her face, the chillingly familiar depth of disturbance in the dark eyes that met hers for an instant. 'Ginny, you have to understand Riddle violated you. It's just like you said...he invaded your mind, you were the victim. Just as a rapist gets gratification from the victim's terror, your fears gave him strength, so he made you dwell on those thoughts in order to extract that fear from you. He manipulated you and poisoned your mind. He made you believe you needed him. You can't blame yourself for being possessed. The fact that you even came close to overcoming it shows how strong you are.' But even as Jade spoke the words she knew it was impossible to explain away that guilt, that intimate mental torture, just as her own livid scars would never stop making her vulnerable.

'You know Harry experienced the same thing...' Jade continued thoughtfully, watching Ginny tear into her fingernails. 'Voldemort possessed him too, and spoke through him. He knows – a little – how it feels...and he's going to be haunted by Sirius dying, forever...You're probably the only one that can understand what he's going through. You need each other...'

'But he forgot,' Ginny said simply, pulling at the frayed edge of her jeans. 'I thought he could talk to me about being possessed, that maybe I could help him...but he forgot. And I try to be there for him, but he never tells me how he feels...he never talks to me.' She paused, winding a strand of long red hair around her finger. 'And then I go and put my foot in it...like last night.'

'That needed to be said,' Jade said quietly. 'Nobody ever thinks about what Remus is going through, what losing Sirius meant to him....'

'Yeah...but...I never know if Harry wants me around, if he wants to talk about stuff...' Crookshanks padded across the room and leapt lightly onto Ginny's chair, curling up in her lap and purring through the silence.

Jade sighed. 'You have to remember... firstly, he's a boy. They don't tend to be good at talking in general – look how Ron is around Hermione. Secondly, he was basically alone for ten years of his life. He's still learning about functional relationships...And so are you...do you ever tell him how you feel? Do you think you could trust another person enough to tell them your darkest thoughts and fears this time?' She paused, looking intently into Ginny's bright brown eyes. 'Tell me again why you broke up with Dean?'

Ginny smiled sadly. 'I miss him, you know. Not because I was in love with him, but when I was with him I felt strong and normal and not...tainted.'

Jade looked into Ginny's brown eyes with a twisted smile. 'And you broke up with him because...?'

'Because you never know when you're going to run out of chances to be with the person you love,' Ginny said eventually, looking at James sleeping in his crib.

Jade sat there for a long time after Ginny had gone to bed, staring into the dying embers of the fire and thinking.

_I thought that I heard you laughing  
I thought that I heard you sing  
I think I thought I saw you try  
But that was just a dream  
That was just a dream_

She had almost fallen asleep when she heard the front door creak open and soft footsteps on the stairs. By the faint light of the coals glowing in the fireplace, Jade saw Remus standing in the doorway. His shadowed face appeared exhausted, and yet the deadened, shuttered expression in his eyes and been replaced by an aspect of peace. He smiled wearily, and slumped into a chair. Jade placed another log on the fire and poked the coals in a shower of sparks. The crackling flames woke James from his slumber. He regarded the new arrival curiously, firelight flickering in his smoky eyes.

'Sorry, I didn't mean to wake either of you,' Remus apologised. 'I was just going to make some tea...would you like some?'

'I'll get it,' Jade volunteered, scooping James from his crib. 'Will you take him for a bit?' Remus nodded, and Jade lowered her sleepy baby into his arms. As she leaned towards Remus, an earthy scent drifted from him...reminding Jade of a dimly green-lit forest clearing and a sacred cairn, a place where one could confess the burdens of one's heart and make one's peace with the shades.

James settled into Remus's embrace, blinked his dark-lashed stormy eyes, and smiled.

Lyrics quoted are of course _Losing my Religion_ by REM (canon: released in 1991 on the album _Out of Time_)


	15. Recessional

**15. Recessional**

**A/N: **I promised myself no more songfic, but after going to so much effort to incorporate a CD player into the story, I couldn't resist just a few more lines, taken from _Desperado_ by The Eagles (1973, re-released 1994).

Harry's feet squelched in the melting snow as he paced the tiny courtyard of 12 Grimmauld Place. He tramped harder and tugged his Gryffindor scarf up around his ears in an attempt to drown out the strains of music echoing from the kitchen. He glared at a crow squawking in the bare branches of a tree silhouetted starkly against the dismal grey sky. Harry was reaching the conclusion that all Muggle musicians – or those Hermione's parents thought Muggle teenagers listened to anyway – ought to be hexed for being spectacularly depressing.

_Damn, _he could still hear it.

_And freedom, oh freedom well, that's just some people talkin'_

_Your prison is walking through this world all alone  
Don't your feet get cold in the winter time?  
The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine  
It's hard to tell the night time from the day  
You're losin' all your highs and lows  
Ain't it funny how the feeling goes away?_

He heard the scrape of a match being struck, and turned to see Lupin sitting on the steps, his cigarette trailing smoke into the misty air. Harry felt strangely cornered. Since Ginny's painfully truthful observation _'he's the only one that lost him twice'_, Harry had felt that he should say something to Lupin to tell him that he understood, yet 'sorry' seemed far too little, far too late.

Lupin smiled wistfully. 'This takes me back...your mother had this record.' He took a long drag and stared out at the bleak grey sky, lost in memory for a moment. Then he exhaled and snapped back to the present. 'Sorry, Harry, I shouldn't burden you with my ramblings.'

Harry shook his head. 'You can talk about them if you want to...and Sirius. I...' he trailed off, feeling the heavy blanket of guilt suffocating his throat.

Lupin was looking at him with that intent expression that said he knew there was something on one's mind.

Taking a deep breath, Harry started again. 'I know it was just as hard for you, losing him. I should've thought of that before.' He shrugged. The word was so small and seemed so insignificant, but it was all he had. 'Sorry.'

Lupin said nothing for a while. Icy slush had seeped into Harry's worn trainers, and his feet were freezing. He sat down on the bottom step and drew his feet up to the dry concrete, hugging his knees. Lupin rested his hand on Harry's shoulder for a moment as he passed over his cigarette in a gesture of solidarity that was all he had. As Harry watched the smoke drift away on the chill breeze, he heard Lupin say. 'That's the worst thing about grief, it makes us feel completely alone, even when we're not.'

Harry nodded despondently. 'I never thought about it, until Ginny said...' He twisted round as Lupin gave an unexpected chuckle. 'What?'

'Funny how some people can always make you see things in a different way,' Lupin observed meaningfully.

Harry hoped his cheeks were not as red as they felt. He fiddled with his knotty shoelace and then took another drag before passing the cigarette back to Remus and meeting his glance.

'So, have you had any discussions with a certain young woman?'

Harry shook his head. 'There's no way she still likes me. Hermione said she got over that ages ago. Although nobody knows why she broke up with Dean...' he reflected, slightly hopeful. 'And then she told me off after you...left the other day. She seemed really angry with me.' Harry wasn't quite certain whether Ginny really had come to his room in the middle of the night, or whether that had been another bizarre dream.

Frowning thoughtfully, Lupin stubbed out his cigarette before he said in a tone that sounded strangely resentful. 'Maybe you'll understand one day what it means to find someone who loves you enough to tell you the truth.'

Only half-comprehending, Harry nodded. Another thing had been plaguing him. 'But even if she did...like...me...' he hesitated, before the fear burst out of his throat. 'Look what happened to my parents! To Sirius. What if everybody I care about is going to get killed?'

He could see that loss reflected in Lupin's shadowed eyes as he said, 'there was a war, Harry, and there's going to be another one. People will die, yes. But not loving them isn't going to stop that happening.'

Harry remembered the words that had penetrated his raw grief in Dumbledore's office, as the sun rose on the first day Sirius was dead _'...the fact that you can feel pain like this is your greatest strength.'_ He hadn't understood it then, and he wasn't sure he understood it now. He thought he wouldn't mind if his feelings faded away, that he could do without those rare moments when he felt he could conjure a patronus in a heartbeat, if it meant he no longer had to descend to the lows that threatened to drown him.

Lupin stared unseeingly at the steel sky that refused to snow. He turned to face Harry, and there was an unfathomable intensity in his tired eyes as he said, 'trust me, Harry, if you don't take the chance to tell her how you feel you could regret it forever.'

Harry nodded slowly. The crow gave a last squawk and flapped away into the cold grey distance. That strange silence of gathering snowfall descended, and a final refrain echoed through the courtyard.

_You better let somebody love you, before it's too late..._

It was all very well, Harry realised, to make a decision to take your heart in your hands in a manner that made asking a girl to the Yule Ball look like asking your best friend what time it was, but finding the chance to do so was another matter. Mrs Weasley had unfortunately not misread the signs that something significant had taken place between Ron and Hermione over Christmas, and had, for some reason Ron could certainly not decipher, appointed herself champion of Hermione's virtue, and hence developed a serious antipathy towards closed doors, with the result that opportunities for private conversations coinciding with moments of gathered courage were scarce.

Harry found himself dragging his bag down the stairs, his heart thumping heavily with unresolved uncertainty, and the memory of Sirius standing at that door the last time he left the house after Christmas, holding a parcel Harry hadn't thought to open until it was too late.

This time Jade was standing at the door, waiting to say goodbye, her blue-grey eyes very far away._ Grief makes us feel completely alone, even when we're not_. In her arms, baby James clung to the plush golden snitch his godfather had given him for Christmas, which was apparently his pride and joy, although somewhat bedraggled now. Harry placed his finger in James's free hand, and felt those tiny fingers gripping his tightly and trustingly. James crinkled his smoky eyes and smiled as Harry dropped a shy kiss on his forehead, and gave Jade a brief hug, before shouldering his bag and following Ginny, Ron, Hermione and Kingsley out into the softly falling snow.

Hermione and Ron were bickering already. Holding hands didn't seem to change that aspect of their relationship. 'Thanks goodness we get to go on the Hogwarts Express this time,' Hermione observed in relief, swinging her book bag jauntily.

'Well, if it hadn't been for Miss I-Need-More-Time-in-the-Library, we wouldn't have had to take the Knight Bus at all,' grumbled Ron, shaking snowflakes from his hat.

'Hey, break it up, you two!' Kingsley interrupted. He was waving rather helplessly at a taxi sailing past. 'A little help, please.'

Hermione stepped out and flagged down the next taxi, which screeched obediently to a halt. 'Kings' Cross, please,' she instructed the driver as they scrambled in.

Harry had thought that the train ride might provide his long-awaited opportunity, but Katie Bell swooped down on them the moment they appeared on Platform 9 ¾ and dragged Ron, Harry and Ginny off to a compartment for a Gryffindor team meeting. 'Two weeks 'til the Slytherin match!' she shrieked as Ron stammered his reluctance about this idea. Hermione curled up in the corner of the compartment, absorbed in her Arithmancy book, while Harry and the others attempted valiantly to concentrate on Quidditch strategies, and snowflakes flurried against the windowpanes.

Dusk was gathering as their carriage trundled through the wrought iron gates to Hogwarts. None of them had said anything, but Harry could tell by the way Ron, Hermione and Ginny's eyes followed the muscles rippling under the Thestrals' dark flanks that they could see them too.

The turreted castle and grounds were covered in a mantle of freshly fallen snow gleaming palely in the last rays of daylight. Ginny yawned and stretched as she climbed out of the carriage in front of the stone steps leading up to the castle. 'I'm so stiff, it feels like we've been sitting forever.'

Harry took a deep breath. 'Do you want to go for a walk then?'

Ginny gave him an appraising glace. He wondered if it was because his voice sounded squeaky and shaky, or just because it seemed a very odd idea to go walking when it was freezing cold and almost dark and dinner time.

Then she smiled. ''Kay.'

They wandered towards the lake, the excited laughter and chatter of the other students fading into the distance. Unconsciously, Harry's footsteps led him to the same place he had sat last summer, overlooking the lake lying as still as liquid metal under the final light of the sinking sun. Ginny turned to face him once they reached the edge of the lake. There was complete silence apart from the gentle lapping of water. 'Harry...' Ginny said softly, in the same moment that he whispered her name.

He looked into her eyes for a second that endured an eternity, and then he knew he didn't need to say anything at all. So he kissed her. And for the second time in his life, Harry was kissing someone as tears ran down her face, only this time they were mingled with his own tears, and he finally understood that the capacity to feel pain was strength if it meant he could feel love as intensely as this.

They stood there, simply holding each other as darkness fell, and snowflakes crowned their hair. 'You must be cold,' Harry said eventually. Taking off his scarf, he wound it gently around Ginny's neck, and brushed away the snowflakes clinging to her flaming hair. He took her hand to walk her back to the castle, and as he caught her eye Ginny smiled almost mischievously, although a trace of sadness lingered in her eyes.

'What?' asked Harry, smiling back.

'I owed Sirius a galleon,' Ginny confessed, blushing ever so slightly.

'What?' Harry asked again, completely perplexed.

'He and I made a bet, two summers ago. I said this would never happen, he said it would.' She grinned. 'He was right.'

Snow was sliding down Harry's neck, yet he had never felt warmer in his life. And for the first time, as he pictured Sirius's laughing grey eyes – sunlight breaking through a storm cloud – his memory held no bitterness.

_Finis_


End file.
